Scientists, particularly those in the psychology field, have long been interested in the things that they can discover about the human mind when putting it to the test with optical illusion images.
These kinds of images typically have two figures within them, but if an individual is asked what they see, they will often only see one of the two images present. Tests like this have been popularized with the “Old Lady or Young Lady?” and “Two Faces or a Vase?” images that have caused great arguments to arise among friends about what exactly can be seen in the same picture.
However, it is true that much can be said about how a person perceives one of these optical illusions, as many arguments have been made by popular scientists over the years that the image a person perceives helps to illustrate whether they are right-brain or left-brain dominant, meaning that they are more words and logic-based versus more creative and image-based.
Of course, neither attribute is necessarily a bad thing to possess, but the tests certainly can answer some questions about learning processes and how different children learn better, so these kinds of tests are compelling to follow as they develop further.
Nonetheless, they are simply a ton of fun right now. And the latest image out on the market is titled “Rabbit or Duck?”
This humble writer was only able to see a duck, regardless of how hard he tried to see a rabbit, but those who created the image served to assure poor souls such as myself that both images truly are present.
The image was first used in the 1890s by a famous artist, and it has since been renewed for these fun little tests. Apparently, the answer that a child gives serves to give pretty good indication of how they are feeling right when they are shown the picture.
Children who were happy tended to see the rabbit, while children who felt somber at that moment tended to see the duck, which appears to be more staunch and angry than the rabbit, who looks almost curious.
Furthermore, scientists also tested the image on children at different times of the year, and they found rather interesting results. When it was springtime (closer to Easter, that is), scientists found that children were more apt to say that the image presented a rabbit. Meanwhile, if the image was shown in October or later, children were more likely to say that they saw the duck.
It used to be said that people grew more sad as the weather grew colder. Now, we know that “winter sadness” is a scientific fact, because the lack of melatonin and vitamin D that people receive in their skin from the sun is so low during the winter (due to lack of sun) that some people’s brains begin to send unwarranted depression signals to their bodies as a result.
So, perhaps the kids found themselves more likely to see the duck during the winter time because they were more somber. Or, perhaps they were less likely to see the rabbit later in the year because they weren’t thinking about rabbits anymore.
Regardless of the reasoning, scientists DID find that children who were capable of seeing both images while also maintaining the capability to switch their brains between the two images more quickly than their peers were much more likely to be creative. The quicker a child could shift their brain, the more creatively talented that child was likely to be.
It was not stated whether the results were proven to be statistically significant, but they are, nonetheless, very cool!
