Rat Man Era

Whilst it may be useful to be alert to the very different meanings that theword 'context' can have, disentangling them is problematic.A very well-known study by Bugelski and Alampay (1961) can be seen asshowing the importance of situational context. Their experiment is often usedas an example of the influence of what psychologists call 'perceptual set': a predisposition to perceive something in relation to prior perceptualexperiences. Perceptual set is broader than situational context, since it mayinvolve either long-term (for instance, cultural) prior experience or, as in thiscase, short-term or situational factors (Murch 1973, 300-301). Groups of observers in the experiment were shown an ambiguous line drawing whichwas designed to be open to interpretation either as a rat or as a bald manwearing spectacles. Prior to seeing this image, two groups were shown fromone to four drawings in a similar style. One group was shown drawings of various animals and the second group was shown drawings of human faces(see illustration below). A control group was shown no pictures beforehand.81% of the control group reported seeing the ambiguous image as a manrather than a rat. The more pictures of animals that the 'animal' group hadseen, the more likely they were to see a rat rather than a man (with 4 prior images of animals 100% then saw a rat). From 73-80% of the 'faces' groupsubsequently saw a man rather than a rat.The influence of perceptual set has also been explored in relation to the famous image. This image was designed to be interpreted as either a young woman or an oldwoman.