Perceptualand MotorSkills, 1993, 76, 577-578. O Perceptual and Motor Skills 1993

THE EASTER BUNNY IN OCTOBER: IS IT DISGUISED AS A DUCK? " '

PETER BRUGGER AND SUSANNE BRUGGER

Department of Neurology University Hospital Zurich

Summo7y.-To study the d luence of motivational expectancy on perception, the ambiguous drawing of a ducklrabbit was shown to 265 subjects on Easter and to 276 subjects in October. The ambiguous drawing, though perceived as a bud by a majority of subjects in October, was most frequently named a bunny on Easter. This biasing ef- fect of expectancy upon perception was observed for young children (2 to 10 years) as well as for older subjects (11 to 93 years).

Very little is known about the looks of the Easter bunny on his non- worlung days. Apart from some vague descriptions of size and embellishment (Vaught, Simpson, & Roodin, 1971), there is only the purely intuitive notion of his being disguised as a duck (S. Claus, personal communication, 1770). To test t h s notion, a slightly modified version of Jastrow's (1899) ambiguous drawing of a ducklrabbit (Fig. 1, inserted panel) was shown to a total of 265 subjects on Easter Sunday and to 276 different subjects on a Sunday in October of the same year. The place of testing was in front of the main entrance of the Zurich Zoo. To avoid influence of exposure to zoo animals, only subjects on the way to (and not coming from) the zoo were tested. To exclude further bias due to clouds resembling animal shapes, the sky on both test days was cloudless. Subjects were simply asked to name the animal and, afterwards, to indicate their age (for young children, age was provided by an adult accompanying the child).

For two age-groups (subjects older than 10 yr.: mean age = 42.1 yr., range 11 to 93 years and subjects younger than 11 yr.: mean age = 7.2 yr., range = 2 to 10 years), Easter and October data are contrasted in Fig. 1. Whereas on Easter the drawing was significantly more often recognized as a bunny, in October it was considered a bird by most subjects irrespective of their age ( X , 2 = 277.6, p < .0001, one-tailed). Thus, the claims by S. Claus (personal communication, 1990) have found only partial support: the possi- bility of still another animal being involved is suggested by the fact that, under the heading "bird," responses other than "duck," such as "stork," "flamingo," or simply "some kind of bird," have been included (Fig. 1). Whilst this yet unidentified species seems to mimic a bunny quite well on Easter, its disguise as a duck is less successful on other days of the year.

'We thank Marianne Regard, Theodor Landis, and Norman Cook for their editorial help. 'Address requests for reprints to Peter Brugger, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry (116B), VA Medical Center, 3350 La JoUa Village Drive, San Diego, CA 92161.

578 P, BRUGGER & S . BRUGGER

age 2-10 age > 10 age 2-10 age, 10 (N-101) (N-164) (N-172)

bunny namings

FIG. 1. The ambiguous animal shown to subjects (inserted an el) with the frequencies of bunny (dark bars) and o f bird namings (light bars) for two age be ears) groups on Easter (left) and in October (right)

REFERENCES

JASTROW, J. (1899) The mind's eye. Populnr Science Monthly, 5 4 , 299-312. VAUGHT, G. M., SIMPSON. W. E. , & ROODIN, I? A. (1971) Bunnies and baskets: a temporal

analysis of children's drawings before and after Easter. Personolify: an International lournal, 2, 271-278.

Accepted February 9, 1993.