Abstract
The present study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that the formation of a given percept of an ambiguous figure results from focusing attention on a focal area that contains features significant for this percept but not for the alternative one. Two such focal areas were designated for the two competing interpretations of the bird/plane and duck/rabbit ambiguous figures. Detecting a letter following the figure was faster when the letter appeared in the focal area of the perceived interpretation than in the focal area of the alternative one. Furthermore, directing attention to a given focal area shortly before the presentation of the figure increased the likelihood of forming the corresponding interpretation rather than the alternative one. Results suggest that maintaining different interpretations of the same ambiguous figure is mediated by focusing attention on different parts of the figure.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 25-37 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A: Human Experimental Psychology |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Feb 1985 |
| Externally published | Yes |