New research in the journal Perception by researchers at Binghamton University has found that digital content may be altering visual perception.
From the study: “With the continued growth of digital device use, a greater portion of the visual world experienced daily by many people has shifted towards digital environments. The “oblique effect” denotes a bias for horizontal and vertical (canonical) contours over oblique contours, which is derived from a disproportionate exposure to canonical content.”
“Findings suggest that digital content varies widely in orientation anisotropy, but pixelated video games and social communication websites were found to exhibit a degree of orientation anisotropy substantially exceeding that observed in all measured categories of real-world environments.”
“Therefore, the potential may exist for digital content to induce an even greater shift in orientation bias than has been observed in previous research. This potential, and implications of such a shift, is discussed.”
The study was published on January 8th, 2023.
