What appears at first to be a 
telling objection to this 
explanation may have occurred 
to the reader: How can it be 
maintained that the moon at 
the horizon looks larger—–
because it appears to be farther 
away than it does in elevation
—–when the fact is that it 
appears to be nearer at the 
horizon? The late Edwin 
Boring, the first psychologist to 
do formal experiments on the 
moon illusion, and many 
others have made the same 
objection. Boring supported this 
objection by asking a sample of 
observers whether the horizon 
moon or the elevated moon 
appeared to be closer to them. 
All of the observers said that 
the horizon moon appeared 
closer. This led Boring to reject 
the apparent-distance 
explanation and to conduct 
experiments that seemed to 
show that differences in the 
perceived size of the moon 
could be attributed to 
differences in the degree of 
elevation of the observer’s eyes 
in the head. Boring’s own 
theory can be dismissed 
because the apparent size of the 
elevated moon remains the 
same even when it is viewed 
lying down, staring straight 
ahead, and the horizon moon 
the same even when viewed 
with head tilted forward and 
eyes elevated. But what about 
his objection and his findings 
about distance?