17 Responses

1. Melissa says:

   September 11, 2006 at 1:33

   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!
2. Alvaro says:

   September 12, 2006 at 10:04

   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?
3. senia.com » Introducing … the Sharpbrains Blog! says:

   September 20, 2006 at 2:26

   […] 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): […]
4. freaky brown eyes says:

   January 23, 2007 at 1:26

   Try cir­cling your foot in a clock­wise motion and draw­ing a six in the air with your fin­ger. its impossible!
5. » Brain Teasers and Games for adults, with a neuroscience angle: our Top 50    « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:

   October 16, 2007 at 11:17

   […] 10. What do you see? can you alter­nate between 2 views?. […]
6. JANICE says:

   December 26, 2007 at 2:34

   hi. i really enjoy being here… learn a lot and am gonna share this to my friends!
7. Alvaro says:

   December 27, 2007 at 8:45

   Jan­ice, thank you for the kind words
8. yahobahne says:

   January 20, 2008 at 8:37

   an old lady with black hair, big nose, a hat and a black coat
9. yahobahne says:

   January 20, 2008 at 8:41

   the sec­ond pic­ture inside the box is a young lady with her head turned to the left
10. tracylynn says:

    January 21, 2008 at 8:28

    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.
11. coly says:

    March 3, 2008 at 11:55

    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?
12. breanna moore says:

    June 3, 2008 at 5:30

    i c a prety lady and a old lady
13. Mike Logan says:

    July 3, 2008 at 5:50

    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.
14. Theofanis says:

    July 4, 2008 at 3:33

    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
15. Erika says:

    July 15, 2008 at 7:47

    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.
16. Stephanie says:

    December 29, 2008 at 4:39

    For the life of me…I can not see the young lady! After given the answer, I can still not see the young lady!!!!
17. Susie says:

    February 28, 2009 at 11:39

    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.