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Why did Segall, Campbell and Herskovits find African villagers more susceptible to the vertical-horizontal illusion than Westerners?

ATheir diet altered the chemical sensitivity of their retinal receptors
BTheir right-angled buildings made them underestimate all enclosed line lengths
CTheir schooling emphasised horizontal reading more than vertical figures
DTheir forest environment full of long trees made them overestimate vertical extents
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: D. Their forest environment full of long trees made them overestimate vertical extents
1. The chapter reports that African villagers were more susceptible to the vertical-horizontal illusion. 2. It attributes this to regular experience of long trees in dense forests. 3. That experience produced a learned tendency to overestimate verticality. 4. Westerners showed the opposite bias because their right-angled built environment encouraged underestimation of enclosed line lengths. 5. So the Africans' bias is explained by the forest, long-tree visual ecology. _Source: NCERT Class 11 Psychology Ch 4 "Sensory, Attentional and Perceptual Processes", p. 74, Socio-Cultural Influences on Perception_
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