do smaller beings see objects in the world as larger, or is their perspective merely closer to the ground? (does your perspective depend on the size of your eyeball?)

Question

do smaller beings see objects in the world as larger, or is their perspective merely closer to the ground? (does your perspective depend on the size of your eyeball?)

In: 10

Answer 1

The size of the eye is indeed significantly relevant, in terms of the shape and curvature of the lens. Just look at [this gif](https://images.app.goo.gl/PjzDh5yCxxJzcFCM6) for an example of just how much the lens shape can effect perspective.

Edit: fixed broken link

Answer 2

The size of the eye is largely irrelevant. Larger eyes can fit more rods/cones and see better, but that’s mostly it.

Put your face down low at the edge of a table, so your eyes are just above the surface. Put something on the table and it will look bigger. It’s actually kind of a fun optical illusion. Your brain is used to your height, and uses it as a frame of reference for gauging size.

In other words, perspective is a result of your position in space. By changing your position, you can change your perspective and trick your brain into thinking things are different than reality.

Answer 3

I think a helpful concept here is filed of view. The percentage of it an object occupies is one way of thinking of “largeness.” In other words, something that takes up 20% of everything you can see might be considered quite large.

Naturally, if your eyes are near the ground, anything that reaches higher than them can take up a lot of your field of view when you’re close to it. A dandelion, for example, if you’re laying right in front of it on your stomach. It’s worth noting that small creatures often have a much larger field of view (in the sense of maximum angle from which to absorb light) compared to us with our depth-focused front-facing predator eyes, which might change this thought experiment of seeing from their perspective.

A related question with a probably less satisfying answer is whether small things actually make judgments about the size of objects, or whether the way they perceive their environment is fundamentally different. Like, snails probably don’t think, “head toward that large dandelion!” Insects and other invertebrates strike me as more low-level in interacting with environmental stimuli, like “I’m in the light, move to the dark… it’s getting darker, keep going the same way.”