Why do objects look smaller from a distance?

[Donovan]

@Cayuga

The book was The Forest People by Colin Turnbull. He spent some time in the late 1950s living with a group of pygmies in, IIRC, central Africa.

That’s it!

[Cayuga]

Thank you, Colibri. My copy of The Forest People is packed away in my attic, where it isn’t possible to see more than about a foot in any direction.

[Little_Nemo]

@Hampshire

Familiarity of object. When we see a plane in the sky we judge it’s distance because we know it’s actual size. I’ve been fooled a few times when seeing people flying R/C planes. Is that a real plane 3,000 feet up or a model plane 300 feet up?

This got me yesterday. I was at a red light on a city street. The intersection was at a high spot and I was able to see ahead several blocks. I could see what appeared to be a man crossing the street in front of some cars at another red light. And the guy looked huge. From my perspective, based on his relation to the car he was walking past, he appeared to be about fifteen feet tall.

But then I looked closer and realized he wasn’t at the intersection where I first thought. There was a pedestrian overpass between me and the intersection and he was walking across that and it just happened to line him up with the street crossing a couple of blocks further away.

[thelabdude]

Yesterday’s funnies had Beakman and Jax’s explaination.

[elfkin477]

@panache45

And another question: At what age do children’s drawings show distant objects smaller?

According to The Stages of Creative Development, around age nine.

REALISTIC OR GANG STAGE. The realistic or gang stage begins around nine years old. Here, the child begins to develop more detail in drawing people and in determining perspective (depth or distance) in drawings. Shapes now have form with shadows and shading. The people they draw show varying expressions. Colors are used to accurately depict the environment, and more complex art materials may be introduced.