- Venus effect
The Venus effect is a phenomenon in the psychology of perception, named after Diego Velázquez's painting "
Rokeby Venus ". Viewers of the painting assume that Venus is admiring her own reflection in themirror . However, since the viewer sees her face in the mirror, Venus would actually be looking at the viewer, not at herself. [cite journal
last = Bertamini
first = M
authorlink =
coauthors = Latto, R. Spooner, A.
year = 2003
title = The Venus effect: people's understanding of mirror reflections in paintings
journal =Perception (journal)
volume = 32
pages = 593–599
doi = 10.1068/p3418
url = http://www.liv.ac.uk/~marcob/Publications/BLS2003.pdf
format = pdf
accessdate = 2007-03-22
laysummary = http://www.liv.ac.uk/VP/venus.html
laydate = 2005-03-22 ]This psychological "trick" is often used in the cinema, where an
actor will be shown apparently looking at himself in the mirror, with thecamera just out of shot. In fact, the actor will be looking at the camera and just be pretending to see himself in the mirror.The difference in relative sizes of the real face and the reflected face makes it possible to estimate the distance the viewer was from the object when they formed the image. [cite journal
last = Bertamini
first = M
authorlink =
coauthors = Parks, T.E.
year = 2005
title = On what people know about images on mirrors
journal =Cognition (journal)
volume = 98
pages = 85–104
doi = 10.1016/j.cognition.2004.11.002
url = http://www.liv.ac.uk/~marcob/Publications/BP2005.pdf
format = pdf
accessdate = 2007-03-22 ]References
External links
* [http://www.physorg.com/news9242.html News article about the research]
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