Infuriating Image
This picture of 12 people will become 13 people before your eyes. I’ve been staring at it 10 minutes and can’t figure out how it’s happening. I’m starting to feel awfully stupid. Can someone please explain this to me?
Via Doobybrian (who also couldn’t figure it out).
February 4th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I found this:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y228/jokermage/12to13.jpg
Also, comment 11:
http://www.moillusions.com/2006/05/count-people.html
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February 4th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I first saw this effect a very long time ago in a book of magic tricks. Most notably, the figures were racist caricatures of “Chinamen”
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February 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Jeez… I conceptually understand what’s happening but I’m still struggling with it. It’s really effective.
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February 5th, 2008 at 1:10 am
When there are 13 people, the top of the second row from the left is the ringer. (He has the black tank-top and the fullest head of hair.) He looks like the guy in the middle who is raised over. He makes a former two-person column into three. (As a typographer, negative space glares, and when that 13th figure is removed, it appears as if there is far too much kearning between the 12-figure set of three-and-two on the left and two-three-two on the right.)
It is akin to a shell game, and the two incongruently moving parts—one slides, the other is raised and lowered—only adds to the visual confusion.
Moreover, the far left guy’s hair is never replaced when the whole bit moves to the left, which is a bit of the trick too.
Or so I posit, humbly.
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February 5th, 2008 at 1:12 am
I still don’t really get where the last face comes from.
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February 5th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Yeah, this whole thing freaks me out. I have to stop looking at it.
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