Kippbilder

This lexical essay discusses aspects of the phenomenology of so called "flipping pictures" (synonyms: ambiguous, reversible or multistable pictures) and lists research methods and findings. It highlights the readiness to perceive faces and bodies from sparse cues as a "flipping factor' (besides spatial perception under restricted conditions). At the same time it questions the habit to subsume all pictures with "hidden' faces or bodies (e.g. pictures of faces that contain in the manner of Arcimboldo depictions of human bodies/faces) to flipping or multistable phenomena. (Written in spring 2011 as the psychological part of a third level keyword for the "Glossary Bildphilosophie' — an expert-wiki of a group of German philosophers which will be open to public in autumn 2011 — it developed in part to a reflection which the author wishes to fix as a statement; thus this text will serve as a reference and an external link to the forthcoming philosopher-wiki to which it owes its production.)