The frame turns also: Factors in differential rotation in pictures

Abstract

When pictures of simple shapes (square, diamond) were seen frontally and obliquely, (1) the shapes with a deeper extent into pictured space underwent more rotation (Goldstein, 1979), which is an apparent turning to keep an orientation toward an observer's changing position; (2) there was little effect of whether the observer knew the picture surface's orientation in real space, except that such knowledge could prevent multistability; and (3) depicted picture frames also rotated. In other experiments, figural and frame rotations were independent of each other, and rotation was shown for real frames. The rotation of depthless depictions suggests that at least two rotational factors exist, one that involves the object's virtual depth and one that does not. The nature of this second factor is discussed. Frame rotation appeared to subtract from object rotation when the two were being compared; this could explain a paradox in picture perception: Depicted orientations often seem little changed over viewpoints, despite (apparent) rotations with respect to real-space coordinates. © 1993 Psychonomic Society, Inc.