Set and Different Degrees of Ambiguity of the “Wife and Mother-in-Law” Figures

Abstract

A series of 6 ambiguous wife and mother-in-law figures were presented to two groups of Ss who initially saw either the unambiguous wife or mother-in-law. The evidence generally supported the effect of prior experience in influencing the perceptual organization of ambiguous forms. However, the data also indicated that some forms were resistant to one of the experiential sets. Further, an ambiguous form did not show the effect of set after a 1-wk. interval.