The moon illusion in children's drawings Online publication date: Wed, 07-Apr-2010
by Helen E. Ross, Adele Cowie
International Journal of Arts and Technology (IJART), Vol. 3, No. 2/3, 2010
Abstract: The full moon subtends an angle of 0.5° and occupies about 1/100th of the landscape in a standard photograph. Artists usually draw the moon much larger than this, particularly when low on the horizon. The relatively large appearance near the horizon is known as the moon illusion. We tested children aged 4-12 years and adults aged about 21 years, asking them to draw the apparent size of the moon on a photocopy of a landscape, both near the horizon and high in the sky. The mean ratio of the low to high moons was 1.57, and the size of the illusion did not vary significantly with age. The illusion, like size-constancy in the near distance, is well established by age 4.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Arts and Technology (IJART):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com