Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions (3D) and the distance of an object. Depth sensation is the corresponding term for animals, since although it is known that animals can sense the distance of an object (because of their ability to move accurately, or to respond consistently, according to that distance), it is not known whether they "perceive" it in the same subjective way that humans do.
Depth perception arises from a variety of depth cues. These are typically classified into binocular cues that require input from both eyes and monocular cues that require the input from just one eye. Binocular cues include stereopsis, yielding depth from binocular vision through exploitation of parallax. Monocular cues include size: distant objects subtend smaller visual angles than near objects.
Read more about Depth Perception: Monocular Cues, Binocular Cues, Evolution, Depth Perception in Art, Disorders Affecting Depth Perception
Famous quotes containing the words depth and/or perception:
“Manners are the happy way of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of lovenow repeated and hardened into usage. They form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops which give such depth to the morning meadows.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“Todays pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase early ripe, early rot!”
—David Elkind (20th century)