Erna Schur

Erna Schur (born September 24, 1897 in Berlin ; † unknown) was a psychologist who carried out pioneering experiments on what is known as the moon illusion as part of her dissertation .

Life

Erna Schur was born on May 9, 1925 by the Faculty of Philosophy of Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin to Dr. phil. PhD .

Services

Under the guidance of her doctoral supervisor , the psychologist Wolfgang Köhler , Erna Schur carried out a series of experiments on size perception in connection with the moon illusion . This is understood to mean the observation that the moon, the sun and also constellations near the horizon are perceived to be significantly larger than high in the sky, although an astronomical measurement cannot determine any difference in size. The topic of the dissertation was: moon illusion and constancy of size . In addition to two exams in philosophy (with Carl Stumpf and Wolfgang Köhler ), the doctoral examination also included mathematics ( Erhard Schmidt ) and physics ( Arthur Wehnelt ). Schur found that even at a distance in the double-digit meter range, you can be just as mistaken in estimating the size of an object depending on the viewing direction (horizontal / vertical) as in nature with the moon. Her dissertation was published in the journal Psychological Research .

literature

• E. Schur: Moon illusion and constancy of visual size. In: Psychological Research. Volume 7, 1926, pp. 44-80. Submitted June 10, 1925.