An illusion is a mistaken or distorted perception. Why is your perception of these qualities in the Alesund photograph an illusion？ "The smallbuildings near the top of the photograph could beminiature buildings， or they could be farther awaythan the large buildings at the bottom. However,in the photograph, both sets of buildings are qually distant from you （assuming that your eyes and the plane of the picture are parallel）. On thebasis of your past experience with small buildingsbeing distant from you, you confer illusory depthcues to the two-dimensional photographic representation of Alesund. This interpretation of depthleads to a three-dimensional percept. Since there is no real depth in the two-dimensional photo-graph, the depth and distance that we do perceivecan be attributed to an indirect process resulting from our interpretation of the （illusory） cues inthe scene.
Most perceptions involve a complex interplay between direct and indirect factors （or bottomupand top-down processes）, and many contemporary theories "emphasize that interplay. Forexample, Norman （2002） suggests that rather than assuming they represent completely different types of perception, it may make sense to considerdirect and indirect processes as working together to result in perceptual experience. We will later seea particular example of how this may work.
Awareness and Perception
If the perceiver adds meaning and interpretation to sensations, the question arises as to whether these additions result from conscious deliberation. The controversial topic in perception that we emphasize in this chapter concerns the role of conscious awareness in perception. The gist of the a war eness issue is this question: Can meanings and interpretations be applied to sense data automatically, without our being verbally aware of them, or is verbal awareness a necessary part of perception？Von He lmholtz, you will remember, argued that our inferences and conclusions are unconscious.
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