Ambiguous gaze perception in the portraiture by Picasso

Abstract

In single portrait by Picasso, multiple gaze directions are simultaneously depicted, leading to bistable perception of gaze direction. It is an intriguing issue what kind of perceptual processing mediates the bistable gaze perception in Picasso's portrait. This study reported single case study on this issue with focusing on "Marie-Therese Walter". In Experiment 1, a reverse correlation method revealed both an eye and nose were diagnostic features for an averted gaze, while a pair of eyes was a diagnostic feature for a direct gaze. In Experiment 2, it was found that an upright portrait caused two interpretations of gaze direction (averted and direct gazes), while an inverted portrait caused a single interpretation of gaze direction (direct gaze), suggesting a selective impairment of averted gaze perception by inversion. The results suggest that simultaneous encodings of diagnostic features for different gaze perception underlie bistable perception of gaze direction in "Marie-Therese Walter".