Posted on 09/23/2018 11:23:12 AM PDT by ETL
Do you see an old woman or a young woman?
They are both trapped in this famous optical illusion that first appeared on an 1888 German postcard and was later adapted by British cartoonist William Ely Hill, who published it in a humor magazine in 1915 with the title "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law." Using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing platform, researchers showed the illusion for half a second to 393 U.S. participants between the ages of 18 and 68.
They were then asked if they saw an animal or a person and, if they said a person, what the sex was of the person. If the participants answered both questions correctly, they were asked to estimate the woman's age.
Most people saw the young woman, but then again, there were more younger participants (with only five above 60). The younger population tended to see the younger woman who is facing away, looking over her right shoulder and the older population tended to see the older woman looking toward the side.
Overall, the younger the participant was, the younger they said the woman was — and as the participants' ages increased, so too did the age they gave for the woman in the illusion. The youngest 10 percent of participants estimated the woman's age to be 12.1 years younger than the oldest 10 percent of participants did. This could be due to an "own-age bias," according to the paper.
We process faces from ages similar to our own more thoroughly and holistically than those of other ages, they wrote. Further, the findings could also be in part due to sociocultural practices in the U.S. that tend to be less inclusive to the elderly, according to the researchers.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
ACK!
You should know the eye wash always goes last.
All I saw was the butt end of a panda.......weird.
“I know it there because I’ve seen it in the past, but I just can make it out right now.”
Ditto. Over the decades I’ve seen both women. Now, only the young one.
Nor can I.
All I see is blobs.I don’t see either.
I’m old but I only see the young woman looking away.
Ah, I see it now.
For me, it depends on where I look at the pic.
If I look at the pic below the horizontal midline, I see the old woman. If I look above the horizontal midline, I see the young woman.
The old lady is in profile, facing left, with large nose, looking down a bit, wearing a white headscarf.
I saw the young one. I’m 52. Didn’t see the old one until someone explained it.
I see the young woman and I’m 76.
Can’t see the old woman at all.
I’ll be 88 in November and all I see is the young woman looking over her shoulder, haven’t seen the other person yet. Guess I’m a young 87.
Thank you! Now I see both of them.
The sizing of the picture in this post makes seeing the crone difficult. You almost have to step away from the screen to make the mental switch. Hint: The dark slash near the bottom (neck band of the young woman) is her mouth. This particular picture is in a lot of books. I’m 64 and my first inclination is and has always been to see the young woman with the 1890’s style hair.
I can see both at the same time and have always been able to. First saw this in the early 80’s as I recall.
Lately I’ve been feeling at least 20 years younger due to an improvement in my health. I’m 54 and have had lousy health forever.
I used to see both or the old one first but I saw the young one and had a terrible time trying to see the old one but I finally did.
Weird.
You must be young at heart.
:)
Saw the younger woman immediately, and I’m in my 80s. Dont want to go back to see if I can make out the older one!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.