How level is "level" to the naked human eye? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 days ago by monovergent@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I was putting up some wall decorations earlier today and was painstakingly realigning everything until it looked level to my eyes. It might be just a hair off, but if I don't correct it, I'll see the misalignment almost instantly and get bothered for the rest of time until I fix it. Has anyone investigated, or is there literature on the minimum perceptible angle from level to the naked eye?

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[-] AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

I don't know too much about this area, but I do know that this kind of task involves a bunch of complex processing in the brain. The more "Mechanical" aspects of vision could be described as visual acuity (sharpness of vision). However, gauging whether something is wonky would be a visual discrimination task, which involves more work by the brain. It's an area in which one's skill can be improved through learning, and some occupations have a lower discrimination threshold (I e. They can detect smaller differences).

this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025

77 points (97.5% liked)

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