To see this illusion, imagine ‘duck eats rabbit’
Posted by staff / October 14, 2011
Looking at a classic psychology experiment in a new way suggests that our visual systems are more flexible than previously thought.
Take for example, the famous duck-rabbit ambiguous image (above). Is it a duck? Is it a rabbit?
A new study by researchers at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois shows that providing a prompt, such as “imagine one is about to eat the other,” allows most people to see both figures. The finding suggests the inability to see both interpretations is not an inherent limitation of the visual system but may be due to top down processing differences.
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: J. Jastrow, 1899 / Wikimedia Commons
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