Estimation of height for persons in pictures

We report three experiments in which subjects estimated the height of persons seen in pictures. In Experiment 1, 50 realistic photographs were used as targets. The correlation between mean estimated height and actual height was .92, and target’s sex and the ratios of head to trunk, which included horizontal ratio (i.e., a ratio of head width to shoulder width) and vertical ratio (i.e., a ratio of head height to stature), were found to be effective on height estimates, although target’s sex was more effective than ratios of head to trunk. In Experiments 2 and 3, the recognizability of target persons was reduced, respectively, by inverting the person photographs and by degrading the various features of the photographs. The main results were that (1) the correlation between mean estimated height and actual height was .88 for the inverted photographs and was .80, on average, for the degraded drawings; (2) target’s sex was consistently influential in both experiments; (3) vertical ratio was effective for the inverted photographs and the mildly degraded drawings but not for the extremely degraded drawings in which only outlines of target persons were depicted; and (4) the estimation for the outlined pictures was likely to be influenced by fit of clothes to targets’ bodies. From these findings, person stimuli were considered to provide a stable metric stick of visual space under naturalistic circumstances.