Sep 10, 2006
Brain exercise: what do you see?
By: Alvaro Fernandez
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What do you see?Â
-If you see an old lady, can you also see a young lady? Both are there! Lesson: there are frequently different, and equally valid, ways to read a situation. We better listen to complementary perspectives and ensure constructive teamwork. Enjoy the day. |
This is a fantastic eye-brain trick and no matter how many times i try it, it always remains enjoyable! What a sobering reminder it is, also, that our brain will determine what we “see”. We must always retain an understanding that what we know is simply the amalgamation of what our senses have perceived and the way in which our brain has organized it all! Two fun things that this brings to mind…
1) Those posters that we all used to do, where you have to stare at the poster long and hard enough until shapes emerge from the confusing background. Perhaps this is more related to eyesight and visual processing, but that’s part of the brain too!
and
2) A FANTASTIC book, on the powers of the brain: Phantoms in the Brain, by V.S. Ramachandran, M.D. Ph.D. and Sandra Blakenee. A FANTASTIC read!
Melissa, thanks for the thoughts. Yes, it is sobering.
I read that book, and really enjoyed it. Would you recommed another one by V.S. Ramachandran?
[...] My favorite section of the sharpbrains blog is the brain exercises section. This section, which is updated with a new brain puzzles every few days, has you shuffle around different parts of your brain – sometime doing estimates and calculations, sometimes interesting word exercises, and my favorite is that Alvaro puts up many visual puzzles, such as the penny question, the Stroop test, and the classic old-lady/young-lady (see the post for an explanation of the below image): [...]
Try circling your foot in a clockwise motion and drawing a six in the air with your finger. its impossible!
[...] 10. What do you see? can you alternate between 2 views?. [...]
hi. i really enjoy being here… learn a lot and am gonna share this to my friends!
Janice, thank you for the kind words
an old lady with black hair, big nose, a hat and a black coat
the second picture inside the box is a young lady with her head turned to the left
I can only see the younger lady & not the old. I have tried to see the older & can not. Does this mean my brain is responding to the image differently than most.? I assumed from the message with the photo I should see the older lady & the younger would be more difficult. These are awesome! Thankyou.
Tracy:
The mandible of the young lady becomes the big nose of the old woman looking down, the necklace of the young is the mouth of the old and the hair of the young is the bushy bangs of the old. See it now?
i c a prety lady and a old lady
I use a necker cube in my Anger Management workshops for court ordered folks, and I ask if you see box a (the older lady, for example) and I see box b (the younger lady) who is right? Surprisingly enough, a large number of my clients get it that both perceptions are accurate. Gently borrowed From the book Visual Intelligence.
I can see one young woman looking the screen and i can see one old lady looking on the left side of he screen. It’s very good
It’s really hard for me to focus on the old woman. I keep switching back to the young woman. Every time I get the old woman back in focus, my mind just switches back to the young one.
For the life of me…I can not see the young lady! After given the answer, I can still not see the young lady!!!!
I tried the foot trick listed above. When moving my RIGHT foot clockwise I COULD NOT draw a 6 in the air with my RIGHT finger, but I COULD draw a 6 with my left finger. I tried the same thing with my LEFT foot with similar results–I COULD NOT draw a 6 with my left finger, but COULD with my right finger. Can’t wait to try this one on my elementary students next week. I was intrigued by their discussion about the “Which way is the bus going?” teaser last week. They are 10-12 years old and after about 5 minutes one child figured it out.