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179:. One element of Rubin's research may be summarized in the fundamental principle, "When two fields have a common border, and one is seen as figure and the other as ground, the immediate perceptual experience is characterized by a shaping effect which emerges from the common border of the fields and which operates only on one field or operates more strongly on one than on the other".
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The visual effect generally presents the viewer with two shape interpretations, each of which is consistent with the retinal image, but only one of which can be maintained at a given moment. This is because the bounding contour will be seen as belonging to the figure shape, which appears interposed
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and relationships. If one object surrounds another object, the surrounded object is seen as figure, and the presumably further away (and hence background) object is the ground, and reversed. This makes sense, since if a piece of fruit is lying on the ground, one would want to pay attention to the
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used on occasion). The picture should be "flat" and have little (if any) texture to it. The stereotypical example has a vase in the center, and a face matching its contour (since it is symmetrical, there is a matching face on the other side).
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Rubin presented in his doctoral thesis (1915) a detailed description of the visual figure-ground relationship, an outgrowth of the visual perception and memory work in the laboratory of his mentor,
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against a formless background. If the latter region is interpreted instead as the figure, then the same bounding contour will be seen as belonging to it.
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The depicted version of Rubin's vase can be seen as the black profiles of two people looking towards each other or as a white vase, but not both.
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These types of stimuli are both interesting and useful because they provide an excellent and intuitive demonstration of the
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Another example of a bistable figure Rubin included in his Danish-language, two-volume book was the
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Rubin, E. (1915). Synsoplevede figurer: Studier i psykologisk analyse . Gyldendal, Nordisk forlag.
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match seamlessly the contours of another picture (sometimes the same picture; a practice
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Water sculpture featuring a reverse profile of 19th c. abolitionist
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ambiguous or bi-stable (i.e., reversing) two-dimensional forms
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292:"Looking back: Figure and ground at 100 | The Psychologist"
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16:Optical illusion developed by Edgar Rubin
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544:Impossible trident
386:2013-01-20 at the
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32:This article
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58:"Rubin vase"
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41:Please help
36:verification
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705:(1864 book)
609:Poggendorff
584:Oppel-Kundt
579:Necker cube
574:MĂĽller-Lyer
549:Irradiation
250:M.C. Escher
192:Explanation
152:Edgar Rubin
702:Spectropia
619:Rubin vase
569:McCollough
564:Mach bands
514:Ehrenstein
509:Ebbinghaus
474:Barberpole
449:Afterimage
269:References
263:Pareidolia
183:The effect
134:Rubin face
69:newspapers
754:Illusions
726:The dress
718:Waterfall
519:Flash lag
499:Cornsweet
484:Café wall
464:Ames room
442:Illusions
779:Category
504:Delboeuf
454:Ambigram
384:Archived
257:See also
246:contours
244:, whose
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664:Zöllner
654:White's
589:Orbison
554:Jastrow
136:or the
83:scholar
689:Op art
644:Ternus
624:Sander
539:Hering
479:Bezold
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217:depth
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434:list
344:ISBN
331:ISBN
62:news
45:by
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