Relative Size

Monocular Cue: Relative Size

Relative Size is a perceptual cue which allows you to determine how close objects are to an object of known size.  Although sometimes our perceptions are faulty. 

"Skiffs" by Gustave Caillebotte

Comparing the two people rowing the boat, the closer one is painted much larger than the other. Even the two paddles near each other in the middle right-hand side of the picture show the use of relative size. The paddle from the closer boat, which is off the painting, is painted larger that the paddle from the main boat that Caillebotte is depicting.







Two of the same cans, one is drastically smaller than other so we know that it is farther away based on the sizes.







The locations of one of the cacti and one of the vultures creates a smaller retina image creating the illusion of depth in a two dimension picture.