TOP NEWS Research reveals people overestimate slopes, heights These three illustrations show the importance of proportions in large-scale form, according to Dennis Proffitt's research, which reveals that people overestimate slants and heights. It's probably not as steep as you think.
Hills appear steeper than they actually are.
For example, everyone judges hills with only a seven-degree slant as extremely steep. The tendency to overestimate steepness is even greater for elderly people, people carrying a heavy load and people who are tired, of low fitness or in poor health. These are part of the first systematic studies on people's perception of common geographical inclines. Far from being a problem, the exaggeration of slant perception actually helps people ascend hills, said Proffitt, who noted that earlier work showed that overestimates of pitch are even more pronounced when people view steep hills from the top rather than the bottom. The overestimates are functional.