The focusing effect of the blank window behind the woman can be seen most clearly when it is contrasted with "Sunlight in a Cafeteria" (1958),[http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/1/9792.jpg] one of Hopper's late paintings. In that painting, a female and a male subject sit in an otherwise empty cafeteria in spots reminiscent of the tables occupied, respectively, by the female subject and the viewer in "Automat". Even the bowl of fruit on the windowsill in "Automat" has its parallel in a small potted plant on the windowsill in "Sunlight in a Cafeteria". But in "Sunlight in a Cafeteria", the well-illuminated street scene outside the large window seemingly distracts the man's attention from his counterpart, so that the two subjects "do not seem to be acting in the same scene, as it were." By contrast, in "Automat" the viewer is fully engaged by the presence of the woman.