Do Left Brained People Perceive Optical Illusions Differently from Right Brained People?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My goal was to understand if left brained people perceive optical illusions differently than right brained people. Methods/Materials 30 subjects of different ages and gender participated in my research. I determined whether the subjects were right brained or left brained by a test I found on the internet. Then I e-mailed five selected illusions to my subjects and charted their first views. I chose only illusions that had two ways of looking at it. Results In my charts I found one pattern and that was that both left brained and right brained subjects chose the same dominant way of seeing the illusions. Out of my 30 subjects, 12 were left brained and 18 were right brained. The dominant perceptions for each optical illusion were as follows: Clockwise for the Spinning Lady Illusion (75% for left brained group/56% for right brained group); Indian for the Indian vs. Eskimo Illusion (92% for left brained group/89% for right brained group); One Face for the One Face vs. Two Faces Illusion (92% for left brained group/56% for right brained group); Saxophone Player for the Saxophone Player vs. Woman Illusion (58% for left brained group/56% for right brained group); Young Lady for the Young Lady vs. Old Lady Illusion (58% for left brained group/61% for right brained group). Conclusions/Discussion I originally thought that left handed people were right brained thinkers and the other way around. But after testing several of my subjects, I learned that this is not true. Most people use both sides of their brain, and think very alike. Based on the results, there are no noticeable differences in how left brained people and right brained people observe optical illusions. I found this to be the case with left handed people vs. right handed people, and male vs. female too. All in all, I learned something new and hopefully will be accepted to participate in the State Science Fair.

Competition history

• CSEF 2008 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0629

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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