Necker Cube, 2012, colour pencil
on paper, 30 x 21 cm
There are well-known figures
which flip between a few possibilities. These are known as ‘ambiguous figures’.
They are extremely important for showing the dynamics of perception, the
searching for hypotheses of objects that might or might not be in the external
world. Here the answer- the perception- is never decided. There are different
kinds of flipping ambiguities- between shapes, depths, and different objects.
The best known is the Necker Cube.
Here there is no evidence to
indicate which of the large faces is the front or the black. Vision entertains
alternative, roughly equally likely hypotheses. So here we see it flip between
two equally likely cubes as different depth hypotheses are entertained. What is
not clear, is why it is only these depth hypotheses that are entertained and
seen.
(Gregory, Richard L, Eye and
Brain The Psychology of Seeing, Fifth Ed. 1998)
