#9. Visual Illusion Brain Teaser

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What do you see?

Ambiguous Illusion

Keep look­ing at it …

Hint:
You should be able to per­ceive two dif­fer­ent images (but prob­a­bly not at the same time)

Brain sci­ence of what’s going on:
This image is an exam­ple of an ambigu­ous illu­sion — a pic­ture or object that requires per­cep­tu­al switch­ing between the alter­na­tive inter­pre­ta­tions of fig­ure and ground. And although you may be able to switch back and forth to see one image or the oth­er, your eyes will not let you see both at the same time.

Our visu­al per­cep­tion is cre­at­ed by our brain’s inter­pre­ta­tion in the cere­bral cor­tex of visu­al infor­ma­tion enter­ing through the visu­al path­way. Our minds get active­ly involved in inter­pret­ing the per­cep­tu­al input, rather than pas­sive­ly, objec­tive­ly record­ing it…please remem­ber that next time your have a strong dis­agree­ment with some­one. You may both be fac­ing the same exact real­i­ty but “see­ing” it in dif­fer­ent ways!

Answer:
The face of an Indi­an Chief or an Eski­mo walking

 

Next brain teas­er in Sharp­Brains’ top 25 series:

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Alvaro says

    Hel­lo Jazz: try see­ing the eski­mo fig­ure. A human fig­ure in a white coat walk­ing towards the right. In this view, what you see as the ear of that face is the right hand/ arm of the eski­mo. What you see as the mouth is a lit­tle fold­ing in the back of the eski­mo’s white coat. Better?

  3. ray says

    I don’t see ANYPLACE here that says “con­tin­ue reading”.…and it seems a lot of these say you can find and answer and there isn’t one. the one that asks you to find which shape fits says get the answer in “comment”…and noth­ing is there, you don’t get an answer if you post a com­ment either

  4. Alvaro says

    Hel­lo Ray: it says the answer is An Indi­an Chief or an Eski­mo. In my pre­vi­ous com­ment I help see both options.

    Will review oth­er teasers to make sure the answers appear. Thanks

  5. Lyle says

    “And although you may be able to switch back and forth to see one image or the oth­er, your eyes will not let you see both at the same time.”

    That state­ment is false. I instant­ly saw both images and I have no trou­ble see­ing both of them at the same time.

  8. miss says

    im the same as lyle…i instant­ly saw two images and have no trou­ble see­ing both at the same time 🙂

  10. Aaron says

    I can also see both at the same time =D It’s so cool, I nev­er tried that before. Well miss, Lyle, and I all see them both at the same time, maybe it’s more common 🙂

  12. Theofanis says

    I see one indi­an and one eski­mo that he is look­ing to find something

  13. Linda says

    I also saw the indi­an and the eski­mo togeth­er imme­di­ate­ly. In fact, I have to con­cen­trate to see only one or the oth­er. I don’t know if there’s any rela­tion­ship, but I’m also good with audio/visual pallindrome recognition.

  14. Theresa says

    Wow, i only saw the indi­an and could NOT for the life of me find the oth­er pic­ture. EVen when they told me what it was it took me a while and i have to STRAIN to see it. I guess that i just have a one track mind!