Elon Musk is on top of the world after Twitter accepted his $44 billion buyout offer on Monday.
But the Tesla founder, 50, appears upside down in a new optical illusion that highlights how easy it is for our brains to be fooled by our eyes.
The illusion — published in the Sun — features an image of Musk that simply appears to have been flipped 180 degrees. Initially, there seems to be nothing conspicuous about the photo.
However, in the image, the billionaire’s eyes and mouth are actually the right way up — but almost all viewers fail to notice those details due to the brain’s cognitive processes.
According to British psychology professor Peter Thompson, people are not able to spot small changes in facial images that have been turned upside down as human brains have not been wired to interpret such information.
This optical illusion initially appears to show Elon Musk upside down. However, several of his facial features have been doctored — but our brains have not been wired to notice. via The Sun
In the image on the left, Musk initially appears to be upside down. However, upon closer inspection, his mouth and eyes are actually the right way up. Psychology professor Peter Thompson says people are not able to spot small changes in facial images that are upside down, as human brains have not been wired to interpret that information. OpticalSpyThompson first devised the theory back in 1980 after creating an optical illusion showing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Like the illusion of Musk, the image of Thatcher initially appeared to be upside down, but her eyes and mouth were actually the right way up.
Most viewers failed to notice those doctored details until the image had been turned the right way up.
The illusion soon became known as “The Thatcher Effect,” with Thompson claiming that the oversight is “due to specific psychological cognitive modules involved in face perception which are tuned especially to upright faces.”
Thompson first devised the theory back in 1980 after creating an optical illusion showing then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Most people only noticed Thatcher’s mouth and eyes were the right way up when the image was turned back 180 degrees (left). Wikipedia/ Rob Bogaerts / AnefoAccording to the theory: “Faces seem unique despite the fact that they are very similar. It has been hypothesized that we develop specific processes to differentiate between faces that rely as much on the configuration (the structural relationship between individual features on the face) as the details of individual face features, such as the eyes and mouth.”
Musk has not responded to the optical illusion of himself, but it’s possible he may soon tweet out the doctored image on Twitter — the new platform he snapped up on Monday.
Prominent liberals have threatened to quit the social media site because of the buyout, but Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has endorsed Musk’s “free speech” vision for the platform.
