Young or old woman: Optical illusion image baffles netizens

The image of an optical illusion showing either an old woman or a young woman staring back into the distance- which thing you see depends on your age- has gone viral on social media.

The image is part of a 2018 study published by two psychology professors at Flinders University, Australia, which found that older people notice the old woman first, while younger people see the young girl figure.

The research involved 393 participants from the ages of 18 to 68. The participants were shown the ‘My Wife or My Mother-in-Law’ image for half a second and then were asked to tell the gender and age of the figure they spotted in the picture first.


The aim of the research was to find out if “own-age biases affect the initial interpretation of an image at a subconscious level.”

The professor said that they found that young people tended to see the young lady in the image, whereas with older people they tended to see the old lady.

So what changes people noticed as per their age difference is as follows.

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The older woman’s nose is also the younger woman’s chin. What appears to be the older woman’s eye is also the younger woman’s ear. While the older woman is hooded, the younger lady is wearing a fancy hat.

Nicholls explained, “Everyone has their own in-groups and out-groups. Young people tend to have an in-group which focuses on other young people and old people tend to have a group focusing on older people. We think this subconscious bias is what you would see in one of the images.”

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