Responsiveness of Nigerian students to pictorial depth cues

Because research has indicated that many students in the developing countries find it hard to understand depth portrayal in Western pictures, the authors tested three groups of Nigerian high school and college students for response to four pictorial depth cues. Their tests, which used ball-and-rod models originally devised for teaching chemistry, showed no one cue to be effective with all students. The students had more difficulty with cues concerning the relative size of objects and the fore-shortening of straight lines than with cues involving overlap of lines and distortion of the angles between lines. This study was conducted within a link scheme between the University of Lagos and the University of East Anglia. The authors thank the Inter-University Council for Higher Education Overseas, sponsor of the scheme, and the University of Lagos for their kind and generous assistance.