Ambiguity in Mind and Nature is the result of cognitive multistability, the phenomenon in which an unchanging stimulus, usually visual, gives rise in the subject to an oscillating perceptual interpretation. The vase/face picture is one of the most famous examples.
In this book scientists from many disciplines including physics, biology, psychology, maths and computer science, present recent progress in this fascinating area of cognitive science. Using the phenomenon of multistability as a paradigm they seek to understand how meaning originates in the brain as a consequence of cognitive processes. New advances are achieved by applying concepts such as self-organization, chaos theory and complex systems to the latest results of psychological and neurophysical experiments.

I Basic Concepts

The Function of Meaning in Cognitive Order Formation
Some Basic Concepts of Synergetics with Respect to Mult ist ability in Perception, Phase Transitions and Formation of Meaning
II Psychophysical and Phenomenological Approaches
Multistability as a Research Tool in Experimental Phenomenology
The Significance of Perceptual Multistability for Research on Cognitive Self-Organization
Task, Intention, Context, Glofcality, Ambiguity: More of the Same
Multistability - More than just a Freak Phenomenon
Recognition of Dynamic Patterns by a Synergetic Computer
III Attractors in Behavior
Multistability and Metastability in Perceptual and Brain Dynamics
Self-Organizational Processes in Animal Cognition
Dynamic Models of Psychological Systems
IV Semantic Ambiguity
Ambiguity in Linguistic Meaning in Relation to Perceptual Multistability
The Emergence of Meaning by Linguistic Problem Solving
V Models of Multistability
A Synergetic Model of Multistability in Perception
Concepts for a Dynamic Theory of Perceptual Organization: An Example from Apparent Movement
Artificial Neural Networks and Haken's Synergetic Computer: A Hybrid Approach for Solving Bistable Reversible Figures
Multistability in Geometrical Imagination: A Network Study
VI Brain Processes
A Psychophysiological Interpretation of Theta and Delta Responses in Cognitive Event-Related Potential Paradigms
Slow Positive Potentials in the EEG During Multistable Visual Perception
Brain Electric Microstates, and Cognitive and Perceptual Modes
The Creation of Perceptual Meanings in Cortex Through Chaotic Itinerancy and Sequential State Transitions Induced by Sensory Stimuli
VII Symmetry Breaking in Nature
Multistability in Molecules and Reactions
Perceptionof Ambiguous Figures: A Qualitative Model Based on Synergetics and Quantum Mechanics
Name Index.