Abstract
The watercolor illusion (WCI) is a color spreading illusion induced by a contrasting outer border and inner colored fringe. The resulting perception is a pale illusory diffusion of a hue similar to the fringe. Previous research has demonstrated the WCI can bias a reversible faces-vase stimulus (Hale, 2019). Because only the faces-vase image was tested, one possibility is that this effect is unique to the faces-vase image or other images with strong semantic content. To test this, the current study used a set of images without semantic information. Several stimuli were used that consisted of a centrally located white square on a gray background, with squares divided into two parts by a wavy vertical contour. Each image had three WCI conditions (no WCI, WCI left, WCI right). Results showed a main effect of WCI with significant pairwise comparisons between all three WCI conditions. This study supports previous work by Hale and others suggesting the WCI acts as a strong figural cue and is able to bias reversible stimuli, with or without semantic content.