Glossary / Lexicon

Accidental viewpoint refers to a viewpoint relative to an object that results in perception of an accidental (or rarely encountered) property of the object. For example, although three (3) sides of a solid cube are visible from most viewpoints, an accidental property, that is seeing only one side of the cube occurs when the cube is seen from the accidental viewpoint of an end-on view. This concept is associated with the recognition-by-components theory of object perception.