This looks like what we would expect, but when measurements are made it turns out that at the position when the ellipse looks circular, its image on the retina is not circular, but is already of an ellipse flattened transversely. In other words, we see a shape Which is intermediate between the shape of the image on our retina and the physical shape of the object. In Dr. Thoulesss phrase, there is a phenomenal regression towards the "real" character of the whole) as active in perception, re-spending to information given by the sense-organs and not merely reproducing a pattern of stimulation from them."
Some further facts indicate that the "phenomenal regression towards reality" is least in young children and increases with age. This would account for children often being disappointed. at their first sight of large animals; they see them at a distance and see them as small.
Though true judgment does not enter into phenomenal regression, it thus appears that experience does do so. This is supported by the fact that artists show, on the average, less phenomenal regression than other people.
Philosophically these considerations lead to some interesting conclusions. The fact that different people show very different degrees of phenomenal regression means that they live in different worlds. They see the same scene in different ways. Since a man cannot, help but trust the evidence of his own senses he becomes quite cross when others say that they see things differently: he feels they are being wilfully perverse.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.