Sarah's+Project

Title Do YOU see what I see? Or

Does you age and gender effect how you see optical illusions? Introduction

I wanted to see if how old or which gender you are effects how you see optical illusions. I decided to do my project on optical illusions because I always liked them, and enjoy watching people's reaction to them. I always wondered if age and/or gender effected how you saw illusions when I was showing my two cousin and aunt my magic eye and optical illusion books. My youngest cousin, who is a boy always saw the biggest picture, and wasn't able to see any magic eye because he couldn't concentrate long enough. My other cousin, who is an eleven year old girl, saw both the big picture and the smaller hidden one inside. She was only able certain magic eyes as long as they were simple and common objects. My aunt was able to so see every optical illusion both ways and every Magic Eye that I showed her. This made me curious because it appeared that the older you got, the more you were able to see. I. Hypothesis  I think that younger students will have a higher times for the illusions that I time them with. I think this will be because they will not have as long of an attention span as adults will have. I also think that for optical illusions like the vain lady/ skull (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sjmxrHygBno/R_oKOyatbeI/AAAAAAAAA3g/KSNtD_3n49M/s400/illusion_31.jpg), younger children will see the larger picture (skull), and the older people might see the lady or both lady and skull.I also think that most people will see the dancing lady (http://www.bigsoft.co.uk/blog_images/girl__spinning.gif) going right. This is because most of my family were only able to see it going clockwise, and only a small percentage  saw it going counterclockwise.

II. Materials and Methods I created a PowerPoint to show all of my test subjects.. I asked them the appropriate question for each illusion.

**Illusion- How Measured**  Duck/Rabbit- Which one <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;"> Good/Evil- Which one <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;"> Green Dot- How long <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;"> Man in Beans- How long <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;"> Vain Lady/ Skull- Which one <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;"> Lift/Blocks- Which one <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;"> Dancing Lady- Clockwise/Counterclockwise

<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">For the lift/blocks, they were supposed to see lift, but so many people said "blocks" that I decided to add that into my title. The dancing lady was the only one that didn't have at least one other

<span style="color: #02d602; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 300%;">III. Results <span style="color: #02d602; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 300%;">IV. Conclusion <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">For the choice of which one you saw, the majority of the people only saw a certain one. The duck, good, skull, and blo<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">cks were the most popular. It was really hard to gather a conclusion from the timed ones. The preschoolers only stared at me, and I wasn't able to make them pay attention to the computer instead of me. Once I got to the older grades, they all new me so they were trying to talk to me. This made their times much longer. I also accidentally picked a boy who was colorblind. I was really surprised when he couldn't see the green dot, because he is someone who can really concentrate on something. Afterward I learned that green was his worst color.

<span style="color: #02d602; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 300%;">V. Explanation <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">I think that most people saw a certain image because it was the biggest one. I think that when they quickly glanced at it, they only saw the large image and didn't take the time to look at the smaller image hidden in it. For the duck/rabbit, I think that most people saw the duck because it actually looked like a duck. The rabbit hardly looked realistic at all. I think that most people saw good instead of evil because it was the largest word. The man in coffee beans depended on if people actually tried to find it. Some kids tried to socialize with me, while others just kept looking at me. I think that most people didn't see lift because they didn't feel like trying to find something hidden. It was a little obvious (and should have been even more for the older people) that there must have been something hidden in the blocks because of how they were so delicatley arranged. I think that the dancing girl just depends at where you look at her fist. For example, when I look at her feet first, she goes counter clockwise.However, when I look at her head first she is going clockwise. When I look at her stomach she never does a complete rotation but just switches from clockwise to counter clockwise.