Abstract

Moving-monocular viewing and static-binocular viewing can elicit veridical verbal judgments of a real surface's orientation-in-depth; however, separation-in-depth of real objects is often underestimated; the equidistance tendency applies. The discrepancy might be explained by the differing automaticity of judgments: Surfaces are judged automatically in minutes of analog time, and objects are judged nonautomatically in distance units. This hypothesis was tested by employing less automatic judgments, in degrees of angle, for surfaces. Judgments were broadly veridical for two rectangular surfaces in all viewing conditions (static-monocular, moving-monocular, static-binocular, and moving-binocular), as well as for two trapezoidal surfaces during binocular viewing. However, contrasting with analog-time data, judgments of the trapezoidal surfaces during monocular viewing tended to the frontal plane; the equidistance tendency applied, and motion had little effect. The results support a role for automaticity of verbal judgments and argue against purely `'ecological'' approaches to depth perception.