Ambiguous image

Ambiguous images or reversible figures are visual forms that create ambiguity by exploiting graphical similarities and other properties of visual system interpretation between two or more distinct image forms. These are famous for inducing the phenomenon of multistable perception. Multistable perception is the occurrence of an image being able to provide multiple, although stable, perceptions.

One of the earliest examples of this type is the rabbit–duck illusion, first published in Fliegende Blätter, a German humor magazine.^[1] Other classic examples are the Rubin vase,^[2] and the "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law" drawing, the latter dating from a German postcard of 1888.

Ambiguous images are important to the field of psychology because they are often research tools used in experiments.^[3] There is varying evidence on whether ambiguous images can be represented mentally,^[4] but a majority of research has theorized that mental images cannot be ambiguous.^[5]