Kosegarten,
Jay (1/10) If a duck were a rabbit: The logic of perceptual ambiguity and the
importance of context (Gary Kose, Ph.D.; Philip Wong, Ph.D.; Kevin Meehan, Ph.D.)
This study examines the cognitive
prerequisites necessary for perceptual ambiguity. Earlier research has
advocated for bottom-up and top-down models, but, more recently, psychologists
have suggested hybrid models of the two. Developmental psychology has tended to
account for perceptual ambiguity as a cognitive ability which rises out of
theory of mind, but the results have been somewhat unsuccessful. Alternatively,
this paper argues that one potential approach to understanding perceptual
ambiguity is through the study of propositional attitudes and the effects of
context.
Several developmental studies have
implemented ambiguous figure reversal tasks to study perceptual ambiguity and
have contended that this capacity is predicated on the development of theory of
mind, correlating false belief tasks with ambiguous figure reversals to
demonstrate this connection. Given the inconsistent results, this study
proposes that a logical capacity called propositional attitudes is necessary
for ambiguous figure reversals. In order to examine this relationship, this
study introduces counterfactual reasoning to this area.
This study also argues that contextual
factors play a crucial role in bridging propositional logic and ambiguous
figure reversals. The study compares the effects of three priming conditions on
ambiguous figure reversals. The results demonstrate that a linguistic context
primed reversals more effectively than a visual or control context.
Taken together, the results suggest that
ambiguous perception is contingent upon a propositional attitude which can be
facilitated by a logical, linguistic context.
