Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/326

310 the black surfaces represent the bottoms of the blocks, all pointing downward and to the left, and now the black surfaces have changed and have become the tops pointing upward and to the right. For some the changes come at will; for others they seem to come unexpectedly, but all are aided by anticipating mentally the nature of the transformation. The effect here is quite striking, the blocks seeming almost animated and moving through space. In Fig. 17 a similar arrangement serves to create an illusion as to the real number of blocks present. If viewed in one way—the black surface forming the tops of the blocks—there seem to be six arranged as in Fig. 18; but

 —This interesting figure (which is reproduced with modifications from Scripture—The New Psychology) is subject in a striking way to interchanges between foreground and background. Most persons find it difficult to maintain for any considerable time either aspect of the blocks (these aspects are described in the text); some can change them at will, others must accept the changes as they happen to come.

when the transformation has taken place and the black surfaces have become the overhanging bottoms of the boxes, there are seven, arranged as in Fig. 19. Somewhat different, but still belonging to the group of ambiguous figures, is the ingenious conceit of the duck-rabbit shown in Fig. 20. When it is a rabbit, the face looks to the right and a pair of ears are conspicuous behind; when it is a duck, the face looks to the left and the ears have been changed into the bill. Most observers find it difficult to hold either interpretation steadily, the fluctuations being frequent, and coming as a surprise. All these diagrams serve to illustrate the principle that when the objective features are ambiguous we see one thing or another according to the impression that is in the mind's eye; what the objective factors lack in definiteness the subjective ones supply, while