An investigation of the cues responsible for figure impossibility

Two different perceptual confrontations produced by two different cues (sides that seem to twist and apparent levels of depth), which were thought to influence the perception of the degree of possibility of impossible torus figures, were examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1 it was found that net change in depth experienced with one scan around the figure was inversely related to magnitude estimates of possibility, whereas the number of apparently twisted sides was not. These results were verified in Experiment 2, a replication of Experiment 1 using stereograms of the figures, in which an interpretation of multiple levels of depth was more difficult.