Please take a moment to briefly look at the image above. Which person do you think is the male and which do you think is the female? Was your answer that the person on the left is the female while the person on the right the male? If so, you, among many others, further the research that individuals make decisions based upon perceptions their brains allow them to perceive and thusly see. Individuals have a strong tendency to identify organized objects holistically, also known as the Gestalt Laws of grouping, as well as also recognizing these objects while having to look through their cognitive lens.
The answer to the question above is neither. The overall image is merely a result of an image of a male and that of a female who share a great resemblance, both cut in half and then matched up to the opposite one. Therefore, the image on the left is a female on the left half and a male on the right half while the image on the right is the other way around. Similar along the lines is the Gestalt theory on how one would experience perceptions via the retina, where the notion is that if individuals see a car parked behind a pole they will perceive the object as a car in its entirety rather than an object of separate units (Palmer 2002). Then why would most individuals not see this image as disconnected objects? That is because individuals who visually perceive objects that share patterns or similarities will automatically group those objects together. You, upon taking a quick look at the image, and assuming you did not believe it to be a trick question, may not even have realized the two images split down the middle and thus demonstrating this certain portion of Gestalt’s Laws of grouping.
It is now important to discuss why the image on the left is the female and the image on the right that of the male. The left brain is in charge of controlling the right side of the body and it processes detailed analysis and languages while the right brain controls the left side of the body, puts pieces of information together to see the overall picture, and “tends to deal with large elements of perception…” (Ehrlich 2000). Thus, the vision of the left side is processed by the right brain, which has the functions of perception and piecing together information. This also makes the right brain better at differentiating gender hence if the left half is a female the brain will determine it is a female.
The puzzle is now complete and you understand why and how it is you arrived at your initial answer. If you want to be noticed more or perceived more masculine or feminine, do so by standing to the person’s left field of vision. And lastly ladies, if you are rushed, sacrifice that make-up on the left for your right!
References
Ehrlich, P., 2000: Human natures: genes, cultures, and the human prospect. Island Press,
Palmer, Stephen., 2002: Perceptual Grouping: It’s Later than You Think: Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 101-106. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20182780
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