Rabbit-Duck Illusion
An ambiguous figure in which the brain switches between seeing a rabbit and a duck. The duck-rabbit was "originally noted" by American psychologist Joseph
Jastrow (Jastrow 1899, p. 312; 1900; see also Brugger and Brugger 1993). Jastrow
used the figure, together with such figures as the Necker
cube and Schröder stairs, to point out
that perception is not just a product of the stimulus, but also of mental activity
(Kihlstrom 2002).
Jastrow's cartoon was based on one originally published in Harper's Weekly (Nov. 19, 1892, p. 1114) which, in turn, was based on an earlier illustration
in Fliegende Blätter, a German humor magazine (Oct. 23, 1892, p. 147).
Interestingly, children tested on Easter Sunday are more likely to see the figure as a rabbit, whereas when tested on a Sunday in October, they tend to see it as a duck (Brugger and Brugger 1993, Kihlstrom 2002). Brugger and Brugger (1993) has provided a comprehensive catalog of duck-rabbit variants, along with data on their ease of reversibility.
The illusion is the inspiration behind the children's book Duck!
Rabbit! (Rosenthal and Lichtenheld 2009).
SEE ALSO: Young Girl-Old
Woman Illusion
REFERENCES:
Brugger, P. and Brugger, S. "The Easter Bunny in October: Is It Disguised as
a Duck?" Perceptual Motor Skills 76, 577-578, 1993.
Fliegende Blätter. October 23, 1892, p. 147.
Gombrich, E. H. Art
and Illusion. New York: Pantheon, p. 5, 1960.
Jastrow, J. "Minor Contributions. Studies from the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology of the University of Wisconsin." Amer. J. Psych. 3,
43-58. 1890.
Jastrow, J. "The Mind's Eye." Popular Sci. Monthly 54, 299-312,
1899.
Jastrow, J. Fact
and Fable in Psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900.
Jastrow, J. The
Subconscious. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1906.
Jastrow, J. "The Administrative Peril in Education." Popular Sci. Monthly 81,
495-515, 1912.
Jastrow, J. "Conflict of Psychologies." Sci. Monthly 29,
411-416, 1929.
Jastrow, J. "Joseph Jastrow." In A History of Psychology in Autobiography (Ed. C. Murchison). Worcester,
MA: Clark University Press, pp. 135-162, 1930a.
Jastrow, J. Keeping Mentally Fit: A Guide to Everyday Psychology. Garden City, NY: Garden City
Publishing, 1930b.
Jastrow, J. Piloting
Your Life; the Psychologist as Helmsman. New York: Greenberg, 1930c.
Jastrow, J. "Has Psychology Failed?" Amer. Scholar 4, 261-269,
1935.
Kid's World. "Optical Illusions--2." http://www.frontiernet.net/~docbob/ilusion2.htm.
Kihlstrom, J. F. "Letter to the Editor." Trends Cognitive Sci. 6,
502, 2002.
Malach, R.; Levy, I.; and Hasson, U. "The Topography of High-Order Human Object
Areas." Trends Cogn. Sci. 6, 178-184, 2002.
Peterson, M. A.; Kihlstrom, J. F.; Rose, P. M.; and Glisky, M. L. "Mental Images Can be Ambiguous: Reconstruals and Reference-Frame Reversals."
Memory and Cogn. 20, 107-123, 1992.
Popplestone, J. A. M. An Illustrated History of American Psychology, 2nd ed. Akron, OH: University
of Akron Press, 1994.
"Rabbit and Duck." Harper's Weekly 36, No. 1874, p. 1114,
Nov. 19, 1892.
Rosenthal, A. K. and Lichtenheld, T. Duck!
Rabbit! New York: Chronicle Books, 2009.
Scheidemann, N. V. Experiments in General Psychology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 67,
1939.
Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical
Investigations. Oxford, England: Blackwell, pp. 165-166, 1953/1958.
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