Predicting an Individual's Perception of an Ambiguous Figure

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Predicting an Individual's Perception of an Ambiguous Figure

The key concept we are investigating is perceptual set. For years

psychologists have studied this subject meticulously. Our aim is to

test whether perceptual set can influence the interpretation of an

ambiguous image. Overall perception from which perceptual set is

derived from has left a multitude of psychologists in disarray as to

whether there was any real answer to the nature vs. nurture argument,

which remains inconclusive due to ethical and methodological problems.

However Perceptual set is a debate which has already received many

investigations and therefore a platform in which to discover the inner

workings of experiments in all concepts of psychology.

A renowned study by Bugelski and Alampay (1961) is frequently used to

as an archetype of the influence of what psychologists call,

"Perceptual Set: A predisposition to perceive something in relation to

prior perceptual experiences."(Murch 1973, 300-301). They also in this

experiment indicated the importance of situational context, which is

less broader than perceptual set as perceptual set generally involves

long term prior experience(for instance cultural stereotypes), or

short term or situational factors.

[IMAGE] In 1973 Bugelski and alampay developed an experiment in which

groups of observers; were shown a basic line drawing, which was

designed to be open to interpretation, (ambiguous), this ambiguous

drawing can be construed either as a rat or man wearing spectacles.

The participants were shown, in advance one to four drawings on a

similar style. One group was shown drawings of human faces and the

second group was shown drawings of various animals. Also a control

group was shown just the ambiguous figure with no "…prior perceptual

experiences." I.e. no images were shown beforehand. The majority of

the control group, reported interpreting the ambiguous figure as a man

rather than a rat. In fact 81% of these interpreted the image as man,

compared to the group who were shown four animal pictures prior to the

ambiguous image, in which 100% of the group saw a rat. Subsequently

73%-80% of the group who saw in advance the human faces, saw a man

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