Article

Name: Bistable Texts: On Cognitive Mechanisms of Maintaining of Unresolved Ambiguity

Authors: D. N. Akhapkin

St. Petersburg State University

Abstract: The article introduces the concept of bistable texts in literature, that reflects a notion of bistable images in cognitive psychology. Bistable texts are the texts that can be read in two different and not intersected semantic plans. They are characterized not by uncertainty but the certainty of two equally plausible interpretations, each one of which is independent and sovereign when it occupies the conscious stage. The main features of the bistable text are exclusivity, inevitability and randomness. As an example of bistable text one of the poems written by Russian poet Vladimir Strochkov is analyzed.

Keywords: cognitive poetics, bistability, bistable texts, ambiguity

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