How stable is perception in #TheDress and #TheShoe?

摘要

#TheDress is perceived by some people as black and blue while others perceive it as white and gold. We have previously shown that the first encounter with #TheDress strongly biases its perception. This percept remained stable during the experiment, suggesting a role of one-shot learning. #TheShoe is another image that elicits similar bimodal color percepts. Here, we investigated how percepts change over time in both #TheShoe and #TheDress. First, we show that the important role of one-shot learning, which we found for #TheDress extends to #TheShoe. Similarly to our previous results with the dress, hiding large parts of the image with occluders biased the percept of the shoe. The percept did not change for the majority of observers when the occluders were removed. Second, we investigated if and how percepts switch over a time course of 14 days. We found that although some observers experienced percept switches, the percept was largely stable for most observers.