This is an amazing illusion! What do you see?
“My Wife and My Mother-in-Law” by British_cartoonist_William_Eli_Hill is one of the most_famous_optical_illusions in_the_world. The image first appeared in 1915, but has recently attracted the attention of psychologists again. A group of Australian scientists conducted an experiment and proved that the perception of the illusion depends on the age of the observer.
Not everyone is able to distinguish between the two “plots” of a picture – that is, to discern both the “mother-in-law” and the “wife”. The peculiarity of the illusion is that in one face there are two: a young woman (standing sideways, some facial features are visible) and an elderly woman (standing in profile, a face with a hooked nose is visible). According to researchers, the majority
A group of scientists from Flinders University and the University_of_SouthAustralia undertook a study to find out what determines the perception of the 100-year illusion.
The experiment involved 666 people from 22 countries aged 18 to 68 years. This illusion had never caught their eye before. Participants were asked to look at the picture for just half a second and then describe the gender and age of the person depicted. As a result, a pattern emerged: subjects under 30 years of age tended to see a young woman, while older observers saw an older woman.
At the same time, they noted that the younger the participant in the experiment, the lower the age he attributed to the young girl. As scientists have found, the age of the observer affects the perception of the picture. As the study showed, among older people there were also participants who saw a young woman first. Scientists believe that such people are “young at heart.”
What you see in this optical illusion depends on your age
A graph of how the subjects assessed the age of the woman (on the left is the age of the subject, below is the age of the woman they named)
A graph of how the subjects assessed the woman’s age (on the left is the subject’s age, below is the age of the woman they named)
The image “My Wife and Mother-in-Law” first appeared on a German postcard in 1888. In 1915, cartoonist William Eli Hill presented his version of the picture. In 1930, it was used by psychologist Edwing Boring as an example of a visual optical illusion.
