What do you see?

What do you see from this famous image by American cartoonist William Ely Hill?

How do we process and resolve ambiguous images? There are different stages in which we view an image. In the first stage we see the basic features of an image. In the second stage we take the basic images and form them into different object groups such as points, lines, edges, shading, and planes. In the third stage we relate the object to something we know based on memory. So, what we see is based on our perception of the image. Some people see the young woman first, while others see the elderly women first.

Another way to look at this is to ask ourselves, How did we feel when we become aware that there are two different subjects in this picture? It made me wonder, what other things in life do we see one way, that others see another way? How many arguments have been started because of different perspectives. Sometimes resolving conflict comes from understanding both viewpoints

Picture Credit: "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law" from 1915, by William Ely Hill (1887–1962)

This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923.