import Layout from '../../layouts/Layout.astro'; import BoringFigureDemo from '../../components/illusions/BoringFigureDemo.astro'
Type 3: Ambiguous Figures 🟡 Medium

Young Woman or Old Woman (Boring Figure)

Edwin Boring's famous "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law." One of the most studied ambiguous bistable illustrations in perceptual psychology.

🎮 EXPERIENCE IT FIRST

Test your perceptual toggles with the classic sketch:

  • Which woman did you resolve first? Studies show younger viewers overwhelmingly spot the young woman first, whereas older viewers see the old woman.
  • Observe how the young woman's ear acts as the old woman's left eye.
  • Observe the young woman's jawline—it forms the bridge and hook of the old woman's large nose.

🧠 THE SCIENCE

The Young Woman or Old Woman (often called the Boring Figure) is a classic ambiguous figure studied extensively in Gestalt psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In this illusion, a single black-and-white drawing contains contours that perfectly fit two different visual semantic categories: a young lady looking away into the distance, or a grandmother looking down.

When light from this drawing strikes your retina, orientation-selective neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) map the edges of the drawing. These contours are then sent to higher visual areas in the temporal lobe, including the lateral occipital complex (LOC).

The LOC compares these edges to templates stored in memory. Here, the lines can be grouped in two different ways. Under the "young woman" grouping, the small curve in the center is interpreted as an ear, the chin curve is a clean jawline, and the dark neckband is a necklace. Under the "old woman" grouping, the same ear becomes an eye, the jawline becomes a large nose, and the necklace is re-categorized as a mouth.

Because your brain's semantic network can only active one global object hypothesis at a time, it suppresses the alternative. However, as you keep staring, the active neural network undergoes adaptation, reducing its inhibitory output. The competing interpretation then crosses the firing threshold, causing a sudden perceptual flip. This demonstrates that what we consciously see is a top-down semantic model built to represent sensory inputs.

💡 FUN FACTS

  • • The illusion was first published on a German postcard in 1888, and later adapted by cartoonist William Ely Hill in 1915 as "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law."
  • • In 1930, psychologist Edwin Boring introduced the figure to scientific literature, which is why it is widely known as the Boring Figure.
  • • Recent studies show that age bias influences perception: younger participants tend to perceive the young woman, while older participants see the old woman first.

🧪 TRY THIS AT HOME

Show this image to someone. Ask them: "do you see a chin or a nose?" Notice how labeling the feature immediately primes their visual cortex to swap interpretations.

📜 DISCOVERER

Discoverer: W.E. Hill (1915)

William Ely Hill published the cartoon in Puck magazine with the caption "They both look at you," creating one of the most iconic ambiguous drawings in human history.

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