Question

18. What is the visual cliff and what did we learn from it?

19. What role does constancy play in our perception?

Answer 1

18. The visual cliff was an experiment that sought to understand depth perception in humans, starting from infants and whether the characteristic of depth perception is an innate quality - present since birth in children. This experiment was conducted by a plexiglass that had a cloth attached to the underside and from the other end it was allowed to hang loose - creating a visual depth structure, although it was glass all over. The child was then asked to cross over to the mother on the other side of the 'cliff.' The experiment proved that depth perception is innate.

19. Perceptual constancy plays a very important role for our vision. It helps us understand that objects retain certain characteristics despite distance, shape, color or the like. For instance, an aeroplane in the sky might appear to be small, but through experience and observation we know that it is big. This is because of perceptual constancy.