The Rubin’s Vase Illussion. Q1. Describe the illusion. What do you find interesting about it? How does it connect to sensation and perception? Answer: Edgar John Rubin, a Danish psychologist and philosopher, discovered the Rubin's Vase Ambiguous Figure. Rubin's doctoral thesis, Synsoplevede figurer, first published the figure in 1915. The Rubin's Vase Ambiguous Figure is one of many ambiguous illusions in which a stimulus can be seen, heard, or otherwise perceived in two or more unique ways. These types of stimuli are both interesting and valuable since they demonstrate the brain's figure–ground difference during visual perception in a clear and intuitive way. Rubin's figure–ground distinction impacted Gestalt psychologists, who identified many comparable percepts themselves, because it entailed higher-level cognitive pattern matching, in which the total picture affects its mental interpretation rather than the net effect of the individual elements. Sensory organs receive energy from a physical stimulus in the environment, which is converted into neural impulses and sent to the brain by sensory receptors. Perception is the next step; the brain organizes the data and converts it into something meaningful. Gestalt psychology is responsible for a large part of our understanding of how and why we see things. The figure-ground connection describes how we divide the visual environment into stimuli that stand out (figure) and those that are ignored (ground). The Rubin vase is probably the most well-known example of figure/ground. Q2. How does the illusion work? Does it rely on context, or perceptual tricks? The Rubin Vase is a visual illusion caused by the visual system's analysis of visual scenes in terms of items and background. Rubin Vase is an example of a confusing figure/ground illusion. Patterns are interpreted by the visual system in terms of exterior objects. The visual system does this by distinguishing objects (figures) from the background (ground). When the faces are considered background in the Rubin Vase illusion, the vase appears as a figure, and when the vase is considered as background, the faces appear as a figure. Objects are largely represented by the visual system in terms of their shapes. Elements that are near together, share certain characteristics, or are homogeneous in some ways are also grouped together (grouping). The rapid reversal that one may notice is supposed to be caused by a shift of attention to the contour's shape. Individual interests and the observer's "perceptual set" might also skew the scenario. By skewing the curves or outlines, one interpretation can become more powerful than the other. Because previously stored knowledge about vases and faces is re-used, this illusion necessitates higher cortical processing. Q3. How do you think a psychologist might use this illusion to learn about mental processes or behavior? Several researches have shown how cognitive psychology may be utilized to better understand human information processing mechanisms like memory, feeling, and perception. Rubin's Vase, a classic Gestalt cognitive problem, is the subject of this research. Only one of these two interpretations is possible at any one time in the image. Rubin's Vase has been the subject of earlier research, and many questions about psychological causes, neurophysiological mechanisms, and so on remain unsolved. Many questions on psychological causes, neurophysiological mechanisms, and other topics remain unsolved as a result of prior study. The authors wanted to explain the phenomenon using a conscious system and demonstrate how to construct a model using an artificial consciousness module they developed called the Module of Nerves for Advanced Dynamics (MoNAD), because they believe Rubin's Vase can be simulated using information science and robotics. The authors end their investigation of Rubin's Vase with the notion that neural networks may be used to imitate many complex human perceptions, allowing us to explore the cognitive processes of human perception in greater depth.
