Rabbit–duck illusion
{{Short description|Optical illusion}}
{{Tone|date=February 2021}}
The rabbit–duck illusion is an ambiguous image in which a rabbit or a duck can be seen.{{Mathworld|Rabbit-DuckIllusion}}
The earliest known version is an unattributed drawing from the 23 October 1892 issue of {{lang|de|Fliegende Blätter}}, a German humour magazine. It was captioned, in older German spelling, "{{lang|de|Welche Thiere gleichen einander am meisten?}}" ("Which animals are most like each other?"), with "{{lang|de|Kaninchen und Ente}}" ("Rabbit and Duck") written underneath.{{cite journal|title=Science in the Making: Right Hand, Left Hand. II: The duck–rabbit figure|first1=I. C.|last1=McManus|first2=Matthew|last2=Freegard|first3=James|last3=Moore|first4=Richard|last4=Rawles|journal=Laterality|year=2010|volume=15|issue=1–2|pages=166–85|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-education/sites/medical-education/files/2010-Laterality-RightHandLeftHand-2.pdf|accessdate=18 February 2012|doi=10.1080/13576500802564266|pmid=19142793|citeseerx=10.1.1.602.8669|s2cid=14812167 }}
After being used by psychologist Joseph Jastrow, the image was made famous by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who included it in his Philosophical Investigations as a means of describing two different ways of seeing: "seeing that" versus "seeing as".
Correlations
Whether one sees a rabbit or a duck, and how often, may correlate with sociological, biological, and psychological factors. For example, Swiss, both young and old, tend to see a bunny during Easter and a bird/duck in October.{{Cite journal|last1=Brugger|first1=Peter|last2=Brugger|first2=Susanne|date=1993|title=The Easter Bunny in October: Is it Disguised as a Duck?|journal=Perceptual and Motor Skills|language=en-US|volume=76|issue=2|pages=577–578|doi=10.2466/pms.1993.76.2.577|pmid=8483671|s2cid=38354760 |issn=0031-5125}} It may also indicate creativity. A standard test of creativity is to list as many novel uses as one can for an everyday object (e.g., a paper clip) in a limited time. Wiseman et al. found that participants who easily could see the image as either a rabbit or duck came up with an average of about 5 novel uses for their everyday item, while those who could not flip between rabbit and duck at all came up with fewer than 2 novel uses.{{Cite journal|last1=Wiseman|first1=Richard|last2=Watt|first2=Caroline|last3=Gilhooly|first3=Kenneth|last4=Georgiou|first4=George|date=2011|title=Creativity and ease of ambiguous figural reversal|journal=British Journal of Psychology|language=en|volume=102|issue=3|pages=615–622|doi=10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02031.x|pmid=21752010 |issn=2044-8295|url=https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/15023489/DuckRabbitBJPFinalAuthorVersion.pdf|hdl=20.500.11820/70d9fe08-d869-458f-95fe-1ca7d7150a82|s2cid=20523020 |hdl-access=free}}
Philosophical implications
Several scholars suggested that the illusion resonates philosophically and politically. Wittgenstein, as Shirley Le Penne commented, employed the rabbit–duck illusion to distinguish perception from interpretation. If you see only a duck, you would say "this is a duck", but once you become aware of the duality you would say "now I see it as a rabbit". You may also say "it's a rabbit–duck", which, for Wittgenstein, is a perceptual report.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sapienism.com/post/what-do-you-see|title=What Do You See?|last=Le Penne|first=Shirley|date=22 October 2019|website=Sapienism|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=25 October 2019}}
Thomas Kuhn used the rabbit–duck illusion as a metaphor for revolutionary change in science, illustrating the way in which a paradigm shift could cause one to see the same information in an entirely different way.{{Cite book |chapter=Kuhn, the Duck, and the Rabbit: Perception, Theory-Ladenness, and Creativity in Science|last=Kindi|first=
Vasso|date=25 June 2021|title=Interpreting Kuhn: Critical Essays|editor-last=Wray|editor-first=K. Brad|location=Cambridge, UK; New York|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=169–184|isbn=9781108498296|oclc=1223066673|doi=10.1017/9781108653206.010|s2cid=237739793 }}
Uriel Abulof said that the illusion crystallizes the interplay between freedom (choice) and facticity (forced reality). If you see just a duck, you may need to actively choose to work on seeing the rabbit too, and once you do, to then choose which you see at any given point. While submitting that "once you see the duck you cannot unsee it", Abulof said that "trying to unsee what we already did might be less about choosing one perspective over another but about negating one, so that we don't have to choose."{{Cite web|url=https://www.sapienism.com/post/__icu|title=I see you (The Mind's I&I)|last=Abulof|first=Uriel|date=23 October 2019|website=Sapienism|publisher=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=25 October 2019}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category|Rabbit–duck illusion}}
- [https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2137#0147 The illusion in {{lang|de|Fliegende Blätter}} at the University Library Heidelberg]
- [http://www.paulstgeorge.com/rabbitduck/ Rabbitduck], a sculpture by Paul St George
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabbit-duck illusion}}