Necker cube: Duration of preexposure of an unambiguous form

Abstract

Two well practiced subjects indicated the apparent orientation of a Necker cube displayed immediately after the offset of one of two unambiguous forms. The unambiguous forms were identical to the Necker cube, except that lines were removed to represent opaque rather than transparent cubes. The duration of preexposure of the unambiguous forms was varied at 300, 600, 1,200, 2,400, and 4,800 msec. The main dependent variable was the estimated probability of the response to the ambiguous stimulus, being opposite to the orientation of the preexposed stimulus. From about 600 responses from each subject at each duration, these probability estimates turned out to be significantly different for the different durations. They all were greater than .5 and increased monotonically with preexposure duration. It was concluded that a simple random model of Necker reversals is inadequate; some form of a satiation model is needed. © 1979, The Psychonomic Soceity, Inc.. All rights reserved.