Perception of Space, Depth, and Distance

The visual field or surface within which things exist, move, or can be placed is called space. The space we live in is organised in three dimensions, and we perceive not just the spatial attributes of various objects (such as size, shape, and direction) but also the distance between the objects found within this space. This raises an interesting question, since the images of objects that are actually projected onto our retina are flat and two-dimensional (carrying only left-right and up-down information), and yet we still perceive three dimensions within this space. This happens because of our ability to transform a two-dimensional retinal image into a three-dimensional perception; this overall process of viewing the world in three dimensions is called distance perception, or depth perception. …