Champaign Study Shapes Up

Champaign,
Ill. — Your eyes play tricks. And your brain makes it worse. Both teenagers
and adults misjudge how much they pour into glasses. They will pour more
into short wide glasses than into tall slender glasses, but perceive
the opposite to be true. The delusion of shape even influences experienced
bartenders, though to a lesser degree, a researcher at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found.

How shape can alter a person’s notion of size has been widely investigated.
For instance, triangles are generally perceived to be larger than squares,
and horizontal shapes are seen as smaller than vertical objects of identical
volume. The results of his study will be published in the December issue
of the Journal of Consumer Research.

from
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign via EurekaAlert