Slide 18 of 25
Notes:
Depauperate is a biological term meaning “poorly or imperfectly developed.”
The dog picture has one stable attractor, that of a dalmation near a tree, surrounded by a large, relatively flat area of instability. The Necker cube has two quasi-stable attractors separated by a sharp saddle, so any perturbation is likely to push the percept of the cube into its other quasi-stable configuration.
Perception of Necker cube switches about once every 3 seconds (Kelso, 1995) when the cube is presented at 40o orientation.
Each of the points in the picture just like each corner in the Necker cube participates in one or more stable arrangements of points making up a recognizable figure. Obviously there are many more than 8 corners involved in this picture, but the principles for each one are the same as they are for the Necker cube. I know of only one globally stable arrangement for these pixels, but others may be possible. We learn attractors for these arrangements.
