General Psychology: Monocular cues and BInocular Convergence

Question: What Are Monocular Cues?

Perception:
Is the ability to perceive the distance of an object. There are a variety of things that we use to judge how far away an object is. Some of these cues can be processed by just one eye, which is why they are referred to as monocular cues.
The property of parallel lines converging in the distance, at infinity, allows us to reconstruct the relative distance of two parts of an object, or of landscape features. An example would be standing on a straight road, looking down the road, and noticing the road narrows as it goes off in the distance.

Relative Size:
If two objects are roughly the same size, the object that looks the largest will be judged as being the closest to the observer.

Motion parallax: As you are moving, objects that are closer seem to zoom by faster than do objects in the distance. When you are riding in a car for example, the nearby telephone poles rush by much faster than the trees in the distance.

Texture Gradient:
When you are looking at an object that extends into the distance, such as a grassy field, the texture becomes less and less apparent the farther it goes into the distance.

Overlapping:
When objects block each other out of our sight, we know that the object that blocks the other one is closer to us. The object whose outline pattern looks more continuous is felt to lie closer.

Shadows
When we know the location of a light source and see objects casting shadows on other objects, we learn that the object shadowing the other is closer to the light source. As most illumination comes downward we tend to resolve ambiguities using this

Clarity:
Light form distant objects passes through more light; we perceive hazy objects as farther away than sharp clear objects.

Retinal Disparity:
Retinal disparity is the major binocular cue. Each eye sees a slightly different