Abstract
If the person depicted in an image gazes at the camera or painter, a viewer perceives this as being gazed at. The viewers’ perception holds irrespectively of their position relative to image. This is the Mona Lisa effect named after the subject of Leonardo’s famous painting La Gioconda. The effect occurs reliably but was not tested with Mona Lisa herself. Remarkably, viewers judged Mona Lisa’s gaze as directed to their right-hand side irrespectively of the image zoom, its horizontal position on screen, and the distance of the ruler that was used for measuring the gaze direction.
Highlights
If the person depicted in an image gazes at the camera or painter, a viewer perceives this as being gazed at
The typical family snapshot inevitably features someone staring at the viewer and stubbornly continuing to do so despite all attempts to move or rotate the photo or oneself. This effect was discovered in paintings and is known as the Mona Lisa effect named after the subject of the famous painting La Gioconda (Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, 1517)
If the depicted person looks at the camera or painter, the viewer will feel being looked at irrespectively of their own position, distance, and angle relative to the image
Summary
If the person depicted in an image gazes at the camera or painter, a viewer perceives this as being gazed at. Instead of asking participants for the binary judgement of whether they feel being looked at, we obtained a metric of their perceived gaze direction on a 2 -m carpenter’s rule. If Mona Lisa gazed at the viewer, each point of measurement in Figure 3 would be located around zero for both ruler distances.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
