On the Ability to Discriminate Original from Mirror-Image Reproductions of Works of Art

Abstract

Subjects were shown pairs of slides; one member of each pair represented a painting in its correct left-right orientation and the other a mirror image of the same painting. For each pair, subjects were asked (a) to choose which they preferred, (b) to choose which they thought was the original, and (c) to rate their confidence that they had seen the picture before. Subjects were only able to discriminate between originals and mirror images for those paintings they were highly confident of having seen before.