Thursday, November 1, 2012

Visual Thinking Research


The Cat after Martin Gardner


I was working on this one with my husband. I was looking at computer screen and counting, he got the print. Our strategies were a little bit different but both of us miscounted triangles at first : I got 19 he got 21.

He was breaking picture into 3 main sectors, and count every triangle in sequence within the sector.
I also divided cat into 3 main sectors, but I was counting bigger triangles and then smaller once. Because our numbers didn't match we recount. 

 I took my husband’s printed copy and then I got 20 as well as him. As I figure out I was missing either #19 or #20 at the end of the tail because I thought I already counted  it when I was counting triangles in the middle part of the tail. Both of our visual perceptions "close in" on the hidden triangles in the picture of the cat but until I got paper version and pointed each triangle with a pan I didn't get correct answer. Both of us did mistakes when we counted triangles on the tail. The funny part was that my husband didn't notice it was the CAT he just perceived  picture as the bunch of triangles divided on 3 sectors.

The Lost Star
by Sam Loyd





  


This problem would be identify by McKim as a “pattern seeking”
The purpose of the puzzle is to find a STAR hiding in the image. I was doing it online and my husband got printed copy.

Before I even started my search for a star I tried to identify the visual problem and how I can be tricked.  I was thinking if I need to find a pattern than more likely color would be a distractor because according to gestalt principals our eye groups similar looking object together. We have tendency to group similar colors together and similarly looking shapes that close to each other.

Challenge #1 is eliminate a color distraction. I couldn't make image black and white online and I didn't want to do it because it might take away from the fun of solving it, so I just shifted my focus from the color to a shape, it helped to change my visual perspective, but I couldn't see a star yet.

Challenge #2 was finding similarity in shape’s pattern; we all get used to that stars are formed from narrow, similar in shape and size triangles.  Here it was not the case; most of the triangular patterns were different in shape and size.
So I started specially looking for at least one pointy triangular shape of a star  (as we got accustomed to see it) because it said in a puzzle description “there is a perfect star in the illustration”. Once I found it, the rest was easy; what was concealed became reviled.

My husband on the other hand was focusing on shapes and he was looking for narrow pointy shapes. As strange as it may sound he found 3 points of the star (all in the area where star actually is), but couldn't see the star... He found #1, #4 and I think #2 on the right because he kept telling he sees part that looks like it might be a part of the star .



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