Face-Vase Illusion An Explanation - Essay Example

of the of the Concerned 19 March Face-Vase Illusion- An Explanation The face-vase illusion is based on the simple fact that human brain always perceives things in terms of figure and the ground. Remember the sceneries children make for their arts and drawing class at school. Well, what do they do? Usually they draw a house and some trees in the foreground, with a field, sky and some birds flying, in the background. Ever wondered why children do not draw the picture of only a house, or only a tree, or a field or perhaps the sky only?

Why do they choose to draw some things constituting the foreground and some things constituting the background in a picture? It would not be wrong to say that to a great extent, children do not do this deliberately, but in a way are naturally responding to the way human brain likes to perceive things. It is a psychologically valid fact that human brain has a natural tendency to differentiate between a foreground and a background, while perceiving things. Even when a flat picture is placed before the eyes, the human brain, responding to this natural tendency, tries to develop an idea of depth by establishing or identifying some things as foreground, while taking the other things to be constituting the background in that picture.

This is the way it is. To explain as to why the brain does this may require a complex explanation. Yet, to explain the illusion under consideration, it will be appropriate to agree to the fact that human brain always sees things in terms of a foreground and a background. In case of the face-vase illusion, when the picture is placed before the eyes, as is natural to the human brain, it immediately tries to classify some things as foreground, while taking the rest to be the background. However, going by the fact that the background and the foreground in case of the face-vase illusion are equally strong, the brain gets confused.

At one moment, it recognizes the black part as the background and the white part in the picture as the foreground. This practically translates into the picture being perceived by the viewer as that of a vase. At other moment, the brain interprets the white part in the picture as background, while taking the black part to be the foreground. In that case, the viewer takes the picture to be that of the two faces staring at each other. In the case of the face-vase illusion the brain carries on with this confusion pertaining to the interpretation of the picture placed before the eyes.

Practically speaking, as both the interpretations are correct and valid, therefore at one moment the picture appears to be that of a vase to the unsuspecting viewer, while at the very next moment , the same viewer, considers it to be the picture of a face. Thus, herein lays the secret behind the face-vase illusion. Word Count: 500