Six Bottom-Up Visual Modulating Areas Are Valued by Observers After Having Viewed the Dalinian Image ‘The Invisible Man’: A Study Based on Ocular Fixations Analyses

Abstract

Salvador Dalí painted several paintings in which there were ambiguous images. Also known as bistable images, paintings like ‘The invisible man’ have the characteristic of having two or more possible perceptions. That is to say that different visual percepts can be perceived while observing this image. In order to observe if six different constituent parts of the ‘invisible man’ have the same level of salience, 69 participants took part in an experiment in which they observed the mentioned dalinian bistable image in front of an eye-tracker device (60Hz.). Eye-movements recordings were analyzed to stablish the durations of ocular fixations made on the six areas that were chosen following the criterium of having the capability of operate as bottom-up perceptual modulating factors. The results show that ocular fixations have a different duration when comparing gazes made on each area. Eyes and hair parts were the more observed ones. It was concluded that there are areas that are more salient when looking at the bistable image in question. This fact can vindicate that constituent aspects of visual stimulus have an influence on the perception of the image itself.