Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

yhongo's picture

mans' face and woman

The picture I used for the survey was the one with the man's face as one figure and a woman in a winter coat over with her back showing, standing by a tree. I asked 15 people in my hall to explain to me what is happening in the picture. 8 people said that saw a lady in a fur coat standing by a tree first. Afterwards, they saw the man's face. 5 people said that they saw the face first, and the woman second. 1 person said, "well I see two things: a man's face and the back of a woman". 1 person said that they only saw a woman in a fur coat and nothing else.

It was interesting to see that people either saw the man's face first or the woman first. It was even more interesting that to some people, they can only see one image and nothing else. 

A factor that could have affected the results is the distance the person held the paper with the picture on it. I saw that if the person held the paper far away, they saw the man's face first. However, if they brought the paper close to their face and studied it very closely, they saw the woman first.  

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
3 + 4 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.