Surface Attitude Judgements in synthetic textures and real-world images: a method evaluation

• Observers performed more accurately in surface attitude judgements in synthetic textures than real world images. • Tilt judgments were accurate and reliable for synthetic textures, but lost accuracy in real world images and gravitate to Cartesian directions. • Cartesian tilt directions are very prevalent in real world images • The two response methods did not correlate with each other when judging the tilt of real world images, showing that observers were not consistent between methods when judging the same image. • The dial method had higher gain and sensitivity than the gauge figure method when judging synthetic textures, but the pattern reversed when judging real world images. Discussion Observers responded to monocularly presented images or textures.