Jenny Nelson
             11278656
             Psy208
             Assignment 2
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             The effect of perceptual sets on the interpretation of ambiguous figures
             Jenny Nelson
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
             Abstract
            
             Many studies have been performed to examine the effects which perceptual sets have on the interpretation of images. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of perceptual sets on participant's interpretation of an ambiguous figure, and to see if perceptual sets were induced upon participant's viewing of a second ambiguous figure. The study involved 28 participants who were asked to view a series of 4 images followed by an ambiguous figure. This was repeated with a set of four different images. The results were consistent with those of Power (1983), in that perceptual sets effect the way in which people interpret ambiguous figures. The study also found that perceptual sets did not play a role in the interpretation of the ambiguous figure for the second time.
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
            
             Introduction
            
             Many studies have been performed to show that past expectancies and experience
            
             effect the way which individuals view and attend to features in the visual field. This
            
             phenomenon has been examined in regard to brain activity and attentive processing to
            
             explore the effects which experience and expectations have on people when they interpret
            
             images in their visual field.
            
             The visual cortex consists of 2 main areas, the primary visual cortex (V1) and the s
            
             secondary visual cortex (V2) . Cells within the V1 and V2 are horizontally connected, and
            
             integrate information from a large part of the cortex. These cells are clustered into specific
            
             groups, based on their functional properties (Kalat, 2001). Furthermore, these clusters can
            
             oft...