Photographs and CG images are generally rendered using perspective projection. However, we sometimes feel incompatibility when we see these images. This is because the perspective projection image does not always represent the visual impression of real space. We believe that clarifying human visual characteristics will enable us to create more realistic images. A previous study investigated the human perception of size in real space and proposed a magnification-rate function that shows the relationship between the subjective visual size of the object to be drawn and the observation distance. The images that applied the magnification-rate function were closer to the impression in real space than the perspective projection images. However, these results were verified only for single-point perspective landscapes. In this study, we applied the magnification-rate function to images portraying a two-point perspective landscape to investigate the impression of the images. Results show that the magnification transformed images were evaluated to be closer to the impressions in the real space than the perspective projected images. This is similar to the evaluation of the transformed images for one-point perspective landscapes, suggesting that image transformation using the magnification-rate function is effective for two-point perspective landscapes.

Previous study indicated that the simplicity of a visualized situation could play an important role in comprehension and emotion. However, the effect of the art style was never discussed. As an art style with minimalist aesthetic, pixel art’s popularity and value are not well explained. This study is aimed to investigate the difference between pixel and vector art style by comparing one of the visualized situations extracted from previous study and the pixelated counterpart.

166 valid responses were collected (69 males & 97 females). Participants were randomly separated into 2 groups, presented with 2 different art styles. After observing the visualized situation, they filled in a questionnaire asking about their understandings, evoked emotions, how realistic it feels, and how easy for them to picture themselves in the situation. ANOVAs and multiple regression analyses were conducted and results showed that art style did not have a big impact on emotions, whereas for pixel art style, the older the participant is, the easier they could picture themselves being in the situation. Additional analysis using chi-square test found that people tend to believe the situation is in a past era when observing the pixel version. This study revealed the potential impact of pixel art style on people’s comprehension, tricking people to believe it is happening in a past era. This phenomenon should be taken advantage of in not only game design but also other media graphic design scenarios.

Applications operated on smartphones and other devices with a small user interface area on the screen and a large number of functions and contents will inevitably increase the number of operation procedures and make them more complicated. However, compared to the attention paid to information architecture and interaction in realizing intuitive user interfaces, less attention is paid to icons, and there are many examples where generic icons are used. Therefore, when icons and the functions they represent are different for each application, or when icons are unintelligible because of the distance between the user's mental model and the icons, the cognitive burden on the user is amplified, which may affect usability. We compared the usability of icons, one of the GUI elements, by focusing on their metaphors, and showed that the selection of metaphors that are in line with users' mental models has a positive effect on usability by improving the performance of task completion time and the number of errors. This study clarified the influence of the degree of congruence between the metaphor used and the user's mental model on the usability of icons, one of the GUI elements.