Here is a well-known illusion that I have posted before. Take a look at it.
There is some new research out suggesting that right and left handers see the image differently. But is that really the case? Indicate whether you first saw the duck or rabbit when you saw the image a few moments ago, and then vote using the appropriate poll below….
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August 25, 2010 at 5:39 am |
Since I’ve seen this before, the image shifted rapidly between a rabbit and a duck as often as I wanted it to. No ‘lock-in” as happens with some illusions.
Right-handed, except with mouse control.
August 25, 2010 at 6:18 am |
I’m mostly right-handed aside from a few things I do like a lefty, and when I see the picture I see a quantum superposition of duck and rabbit in the same space.
August 25, 2010 at 7:11 am |
I wonder if there’s a difference re the ‘spinning dancer’ illusion too
August 25, 2010 at 7:17 am |
I’ve seen it before as well and it makes a difference to what I perceive at first glance.
Maybe that should have been in the selections as well as left/right handedness.
August 25, 2010 at 7:51 am |
Initially I saw a naked woman lying in a pool of blood.
August 25, 2010 at 8:25 am |
I just saw a duck-rabbit, it’s too familiar.
August 25, 2010 at 8:35 am |
The tip of the “muzzle” has a kink in it which doesn’t quite “work” as the back of a duck’s head.
The tips of the “beak” are too angular for a rabbit’s ears.
Try intentionally keeping the far right side of the picture as the centre of your focus. It is practically impossible to read the image as that of a duck. Switch to keeping the far left side as the centre of your focus and it becomes impossible to read the image as that of a rabbit.
Could the hypothesised left-handed/right-handed biases be due to a tendency of left-handers and right-handers to read images in different directions?
I would guess that left-handers read from right to left and would see a rabbit first. Left-handers have a higher level of “dislexia” and “right to left” is the wrong way for reading!
August 25, 2010 at 8:41 am |
I’m left handed and see the duck first, despite knowing the rabbit is there too. The straightness of the bill/ears draw my eyes in and i focus on that first, hence seeing the duck. It’s only when i shift my gaze to the right that i see the rabbit. There’s a focal point in the middle where i can almost see both at once!
August 25, 2010 at 9:10 am |
I think Thomas makes a good point (I’m reposting his comment from the polldaddy poll – think it’s a bit daft to have a separate comments box there):
The angle of the illusion makes a big difference. Nearly horizontal like that is quite an odd rabbit head-posture so is biased towards duck. At a slight angle, e.g.: http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~stam/suomi/stam/pics/duck_rabbit.gif I tend to see rabbit.
August 25, 2010 at 9:18 am |
I saw a dog mask:
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7lw6navKd1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg
August 25, 2010 at 10:08 am |
Hii..
Wen I found the image.. I first saw the Duck… then a closer look revealed a close to rabbit image… but I am not convinced that is a good rabbit image…
August 25, 2010 at 10:13 am |
I’m a righty and although I’m familiar with the image the ‘duck’ is the stronger one for me on first look.
August 25, 2010 at 10:21 am |
Right handed, I’ve seen them both.
However, the duck got first into my mind.
August 25, 2010 at 10:40 am |
Duck season!
August 25, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Rabbit season!
August 25, 2010 at 11:27 am |
I saw the rabbit first but picked ‘duck’ because I remembered that when I first came across the illusion I saw the duck first.
August 25, 2010 at 11:37 am |
I see both in equal measure but I’ve gone for duck as it’s overall the most dominant when looking at the centre of the image. I’m right handed.
August 25, 2010 at 11:51 am |
I’m wondering if I saw a duck first and not the rabbit because the part of the image that is supposed to be rabbit ears looks nothing like rabbit ears, so my brain did not immediately latch onto it. As a duck’s bill however, that shape seems far more ‘feasible’.
So I’m not yet convinced any visual bias towards duck or wabbit is due to any left / right brain ‘wiring’. Looking forward to any conclusions
August 25, 2010 at 11:57 am |
I saw a spinning lady, but I couldn’t tell if she was spinning to the left or right…
August 25, 2010 at 11:58 am |
I don’t remember which way I first saw the picture. But I do remember a James Thurber story about a veterinarian with a column in the local newspaper. One man wrote in saying that his rabbit was sick, and enclosed a picture. The vet wrote that “the problem with your rabbit is that it’s actually a duck looking the other way.”
August 25, 2010 at 12:01 pm |
Maybe motion should be brought into the mix too? I’ve seen an animated image of a girl spinning that may be a good test for any left / right brain biases rather than a static image. That skeptical rogue Steve Novella has the example at his NeuroLogica Blog:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=27
I’m right-handed and I always see her spinning anti-clockwise at first. It’s also quite a cool and interesting mental exercise to re-visualise her spinning in the opposite direction. I’ve tried to see how quickly I can make her switch between her direction of rotation but I seem limited to about 1 to 1.5 seconds.
I’d love an explanation of what goes on as my brain re-visualises the direction
August 25, 2010 at 12:07 pm |
As you can also see from Steve’s discussion though, he isn’t convinced there is any validity to any claims that such images can be used as some kind of indicator for any left / right brained public consciousness. But who knows, as brain imaging technoclogy improves, further research may reveal more details to consider.
August 25, 2010 at 12:31 pm |
It always looks like a rabbit to me. I mean, I can see the duck, I know where it is and such, but the shape of the features, the texturing etc just seem to make more sense in the rabbit ‘version’ of the image.
August 25, 2010 at 12:45 pm |
It’s clearly a black seagull. No duck has a beak like that.
August 25, 2010 at 2:24 pm |
I think I have seen this before. I’ve chosen duck.
August 25, 2010 at 2:55 pm |
This one is so familiar to me, I saw both the duck and the rabbit nearly simultaneously. But, I guess the rabbit came a split second earlier (this time) so I chose that one.
I dont know which one I saw first when I came across this picture the first time (years ago). It might be the duck.. or the rabbit.
August 25, 2010 at 3:12 pm |
Something that might be related: Is this picture about the people in the boat, or about the thing in front of them? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/La_Grande_Vague_invers%C3%A9e.jpg
August 25, 2010 at 5:31 pm |
I saw lunch.
August 25, 2010 at 6:06 pm |
I see both simulteneously. but, the duck is more.
August 25, 2010 at 6:21 pm |
I’m kinda right-handed, but I do some stuff as a lefty. And I see a rabbit first.
August 26, 2010 at 12:10 am |
[...] What do you see when you look at this…. Here is a well-known illusion that I have posted before. Take a look at it. There is some new research out suggesting [...] [...]
August 26, 2010 at 1:06 am |
But I’m ambidextrous.
And I saw a pair of fencing pliers.
August 26, 2010 at 4:35 am |
Hmm, I’m not sure what to put. I was born left-handed but my parents made me use my right hand to make it easier for me as I was growing up. I saw a rabbit.
August 26, 2010 at 7:23 am |
Well I’m a left hander and I saw the duck first . I saw the rabbit when I looked at the picture for the second time.
Here’s a brainteaser – http://www.iqtestexperts.com/brainteasers/
September 4, 2010 at 8:13 am
That was the easiest ever
August 26, 2010 at 12:48 pm |
Right-hand dominant ambidextrous, I don’t really see one or the other first, but if I had to pick it would be the duck purely from the position of the head which, in the example shown, favours the duck. Find one that has a more natural position for the rabbit and I’m sure you’d find people saw the rabbit first.
August 26, 2010 at 2:58 pm |
In an old photo of Martin Gardner, I saw that he had a paper-weight thingy on his desk of the duck-rabbit illusion. I’ve scoured the interweb looking for such a thing to purchase, but haven’t found it. Any help out there?
August 26, 2010 at 8:08 pm |
I right-handed and I saw the duck first. Could there be any correlation with native reading language? People that read left to right would see the ‘duckish’ details (and quite frankly the beak/ears look much more like a beak than true rabbit ears). People that read right to left might start their scan on the other side. Just a thought.
August 27, 2010 at 5:04 am |
Right hand……..saw rabbit first!
August 27, 2010 at 4:29 pm |
Woooaaah.
I’m right handed and see the rabbit first. I just right-click downloaded the picture, opened it up in piture manager and flipped the umage horizontal. A duck leapt out at me.
Try it!
August 27, 2010 at 6:15 pm |
I see both rabbit and duck at the same time. Then again I’m ambidextrous.
August 28, 2010 at 3:41 am |
Because I have seen this one before I see both the rabbit and the duck at the same time in fact I have trouble just seeing one without the other
August 28, 2010 at 3:20 pm |
I’m a weakly left-handed person (nearly ambidextrous), unfortunately I have seen this image before. The rabbit is more visually pleasing to me, it’s easier to look at; when I look at the duck, I get some eye strain because I want to see the rabbit.
I have a similar idea to Tony Lloyd, but mine involves drawing as well. It’s pretty well accepted now, left handed people prefer to draw profiles facing the right, and right handed people prefer drawing profiles facing the left. It’s a sort of natural method, it makes sense on a visual level because the part of the head that matters the most is the face. Drawing to the opposite with your dominant hand is easier.
This natural tendency may make one “biased” towards right, or left facing figures.
September 4, 2010 at 10:11 pm |
Now you talk about the ‘duck-rabbit’ illusion in the following week’s post, I think you’ll get more duck-viewers, won’t you? I saw a duck, but then I was expecting a ‘duck’ puzzle.
January 18, 2011 at 9:59 pm |
It’s east to flip this image back and forth, but my guess, at first, regarding the bird was “seagull” not in any way a duck! -David