Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

The Mind's Eye 293If the mind stores only descriptions, then a person who sees the duckrabbitas a rabbit should tuck away only the label "rabbit." Nothing inthe label captures anything about ducks, so later on, the rabbit-seersshould be at a loss when asked whether some other animal lurked in theshape; the ambiguous geometric information has been sloughed off. Butif the mind stores images, the geometry is still available, and peopleshould be able to call back the image and inspect it for new interpretations.The duck-rabbit itself turns out to be a hard case, because peoplestore shapes with a front-back frame of reference attached, and reinterpretingthe duck-rabbit requires reversing the frame. But with somegentle nudging (such as encouraging people to concentrate on the curveat the back of the head), many people do see the duck in the rabbitimage or vice versa. Almost everyone can flip simpler ambiguousimages. The psychologist Ronald Finke, Martha Farah, and I got peopleto reinterpret images from verbal descriptions alone, which we readaloud while their eyes were closed. What object can you "see" in each ofthese descriptions?Imagine the letter D. Rotate it 90 degrees to the right. Put the number 4above it. Now remove the horizontal segment of the 4 to the right of thevertical line.Imagine the letter B. Rotate it 90 degrees to the left. Put a triangledirectly below it having the same width and pointing down. Remove thehorizontal line.Imagine the letter K. Place a square next to it on the left side. Put a circleinside the square. Now rotate the figure 90 degrees to the left.Most people had no trouble reporting the sailboat, the valentine, and thetelevision set that were implicit in the verbiage.