Here’s one that has me puzzled for days! Even though we successfully cracked both the Mad Professor and Irish Leprechauns puzzle, I can’t seem to understand how this one works. As a reminder, these sort of vintage puzzles were quite popular back in the old days. They originally came sliced in multiple pieces, and could be put together in different ways, where each setup worked. Depending on how you connected the pieces, different amount of people/objects is seen. In the example below, you can end up with 15 or 14 pin-up girls. But I still don’t understand from where did that extra lady come from? Looking at both pictures simultaneously, I can see each of them present in each setup. Please help me figure this one out! Visual examples are more than welcome – I encourage you to attach them along with your comments… Thanks!
There’s a saying, “Seeing is believing.” It is easy to quickly believe something you can see in front of you. However, when you are faced with a tricky picture, your perception may not be as clear as you think. Our perspective can often be clouded by our need for a logical answer or from daily activities, stress, not enough sleep, or other events causing chaos. Even when we think out perception is as clear as looking through a window in our home, there is always something that changes our focus and ends up making our vision like that of a side mirror on a car. We’re all seen the warning on car mirrors, “Objects in mirrors are closer than they appear.” Some tasks in daily life and images such as this should read, “Optical illusions are trickier than they appear.”
Look at the pictures again. Focus on the picture. Now recount each of the vanishing girls. How many vanishing girls did you see? Do you still end up with 14 and 15 girls? Where has the vanishing girl gone? Has she simply vanished without a trace? Do you believe that it is possible? Does she dance right off the page or is she simply hiding behind another girl?
The magic in this illusion is that the change is so minimal it’s hard to notice. When the change is right in front of your face, it can often be the hardest to see. Unless you are aware that there is a change and a logically reason behind the missing lady, it is hard to feel like you are not the brightest. Our brains naturally fill in blanks, often confusing us even more when we are trying to find the difference in pictures or when it comes to counting. Unless we are able to pick apart an image, it is hard to see exactly what happens.
Were you able it figure it out? Did you find out where the 15th girl, the vanishing girl goes? Were you able to notice a change? Do the vanishing girls still have you confused?
Want to exercise your brain with more? What about the human brain made of people, mind blowing puzzles, and other brain exercises? Completing puzzles like this will allow your brain to learn how to see the difference and not to only see what it is supposed to see. By doing more puzzles, you can train your brain to be aware of changes and notice when things are not the way the are supposed to be.
Our brains are trained see what is supposed to be there and not what is really there. Without practice and extreme concentration, the images would appear the same and we would not ever notice that there different numbers of vanishing girls in each pictures. Until you pick apart and look at each specific aspect of the picture, you are unable to find where the logical explanation comes into play and how it can be the same image. However, the more you practice these logical brain teasers, the sooner you will be able to spot how these types of changes are made.