{"id":894,"date":"2018-03-06T19:20:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T03:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kylemathewson.com\/?p=894"},"modified":"2018-03-06T19:20:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T03:20:59","slug":"duck-duck-rabbit-how-we-see-what-we-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/duck-duck-rabbit-how-we-see-what-we-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Duck, duck, rabbit: How we see what we see"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Research on optical illusion gives insight into how we perceive the world.<\/h1>\n

By Katie Willis on March 5, 2018<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.ualberta.ca\/science\/science-news\/2018\/march\/optical-illusion-gives-insight-into-how-we-perceive-the-world<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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\"Optical<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you see when you look at these images side by side?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When you look at the two images above, what do you see? Maybe you see two ducks, sitting side-by-side. Perhaps instead you see two rabbits. Maybe you see a duck and a rabbit.<\/p>\n

Now look at the image, and imagine a duck eating a rabbit. Can you see it now?<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not the only one who needs prompting to see both images side by side, according to research from University of Alberta neuroscientist\u00a0Kyle Mathewson<\/a>. Approximately half of people can\u2019t see both a duck and a rabbit at first glance. The flip takes place only when you ask them to imagine a duck eating a rabbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour brain sort of zooms out and can see the big picture when the images are put into context with one another,\u201d said Mathewson, an assistant professor in the\u00a0Department of Psychology.<\/a><\/p>\n

Context is crucial<\/h3>\n

The study shows that a short cue–like \u201cduck eats rabbit\u201d–can give our brain the context it needs to distinguish between two identical images.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study also demonstrates that we can control the brain\u2019s way of interpreting information with just a few words or with an image,\u201d explained Mathewson. \u201cWe should all be mindful of that when, for example, we\u2019re reading a news story. We often interpreting and understanding information the way we want to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study also tried to see if another, more simple phrase would work\u2014namely, \u201cImagine a duck beside a rabbit.\u201d But this phrase did not have the same effect, because it does not explain which image should be a duck and which should be a rabbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we discovered is that you have to come up with a way to disambiguate the scene, to allow the brain to distinguish between two alternatives,\u201d said Mathewson.<\/p>\n

The study, \u201cDuck Eats Rabbit: Exactly which type of relational phrase can disambiguate the perception of identical side by side ambiguous figures?\u201d was published in\u00a0Perception<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(doi:\u00a010.17605\/OSF.IO\/3J624<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research on optical illusion gives insight into how we perceive the world. By Katie Willis on March 5, 2018 https:\/\/www.ualberta.ca\/science\/science-news\/2018\/march\/optical-illusion-gives-insight-into-how-we-perceive-the-world What do you see when you look at these images side by side? When you look at the two images above, what do you see? Maybe you see two ducks, sitting side-by-side. Perhaps instead you … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Duck, duck, rabbit: How we see what we see”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.psych.ualberta.ca\/kylemathewson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}