By Vurdlak on October 25, 2006, with 125 Comments
Can you do me a favour? If you are using our Optical Illusion of the Day Gadget or Mac Widget, can you please make a screenshot of it (with full desktop) and mail it to us, so we can include them inside our one of next posts (use “printscreen” and paste it into photoshop, paint or any other image editing tool, and save as JPG). You can send your screenshots to this email adress: vurdlak@gmail.com. Now let’s go on with today’s new illusion:
This came in one of those forwarding emails, lot of us usually consider spam. Well, this submission by Bruno David Rodrigues actually intrigued me, since it works so well! It’s pretty old stuff, but classic optical illusion I never previously posted on this site! Open the article to find answers and another test inside! After that, be sure to check previous classics: Double Meanings, Brain is a Genius, Missing Piece, Stroop Effect and Left-Right Brain magic trick. If you like Optical Illusion Tests, be sure to check appropriate existing category full of them!
It’s more than likely you said, “A bird in the bush”. If this IS what YOU said, then you failed to see that the word THE is repeated twice inside this triangle! Sorry, look again :) and try to post your explanation. There is something worng with our brains, I think. Another example is this sentance:
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS…
How many F‘s did you count? Wrong! There are six of them above – no joke. Now read it again with more precision. Really, go back and try to find all the six F‘s before you continue to read this explanation. The reasoning is really intersting.
The answer is that the brain cannot process word “of”. Do you think it is incredible or what? Now go back and look again! The truth is that anyone who counts all the F‘s on the first go, must be a true genius :) If you’re first answer was three, that is quite normal, if your answer was four that’s quite rare. If you found this amuzing, send it to your friends. It will drive them crazy.
And keep them occupied for several minutes!
(33 votes)
wow its awsome i kept like 5 mins trying to see what was the trick in this
Bah, 5 out of six “F”s. I caught most of the “of”s, but started to slack off at the end. The trick to that is don’t read it as words- whenever counting letters, ignore the gestalt.
Pople read words as a whole, not the individual letters. Because “of” is so short, it would be subconsiously be thought of as a single sound, not a word. That’s why you can say “I cnat bielvee taht i cluod raed tihs sneetcne!” and interprite it as I can’t believe that I could read this sentence!” I got all 6 “F”s. *Smug* With the first one, you are so used to NOT having repeated words that you ignore the second one.
It’s only that i read the answer that i counted 6 “F”s otherwise i would still count 3 “F”s its amazing !!!
Try these with a six year old that is just learning to read, they’ll pick out the errors with no problem…reading isn’t automatic yet for them so they pay much more deliberate attention to what they are reading.
I fell fot both of them… whats sad is that i’ve seen the “F” one before…. bad memory i guess :D
I got them both right away….but I have seen them before so I guess it doesn’t really count as me being genius.
this is cool :)
Ha! Six “F”s on the first try and I read both “the”s in the first one! Of course, I love these types of brainteasers, so I’ve done them both before. ;) More of these, please!
HAHA WOW I FOUND 3 AND I HAD TO LOOK AGAIN TO FIND 5 I STILL CANT FIND 6 HAHA
what the hell just happened
I’m Italian (excuse me for my english).
I had counted 6 F, it’s intersting because english is not my native language.
I don’t get it. I just read a bird in the bush.
What’s the trick?
Oh! Now I see
with the triangle, our brains are not programmed to see the 2 ‘the’s. We are taught that grammatically there should only be 1 ‘the’ in the sentence so that is what we read. You may find that someone who speaks very little english would see both.
The same goes for the ‘f’s
When we read the word of we pronouce is ov, and therefore see no f. We also say thought and see fought.
They both come down to the way we were taught.
DAMN IT 5 fs couldof gotten more atually i shouldve gotten 6 ive allready done this trick some where else but i still only got 5!!!!! in the words of scrooge mcduck BAH HUMBUG
whoa….i feel dumb now!I CANT BELIEVE I DIDNT SEE THOSE F’S! :O
i got the first one wrong but the second one right!
i got the first one wrong but the second one right, all you have to do is read backwards!
Chuck Norris can see 7.
i COUNTED 6 THE FIRST TIME, SO WAHT DOES THAT MEAN?
wow i got this on the first try. if you failed this, its just kinda sad.
Umm Acutuall I Did Count 5 F’s…
i dont know why but somehow it doesnt work on me…
I’d rather be pretty than smart
I got them right 1st time! R head teacher made us do it in assembily
wen u sed
“It’s more than likely you said, “A bird in the bush”. If this IS what YOU said, then you failed to see that the word THE is repeated twice inside this triangle! Sorry, look again :) and try to post your explanation. There is something worng with our brains, I think. Another example is this sentance:”
were you meant to spell wrong like this: worng
Man, that is freakin’ hilarious. I showed my roomate the bird one and he just kept saying “bird in the bush, bird in the bush, what’s the point?” until I showed him. Awesome.
I got the 6 “f”s in the first try… is it because English is my second language?
Both were very easy. Counted 6 “f’s” and i noticed the double the.
jut kidding about the above comment
That above comment saying just kidding isnt real i still got the f’s and the x2
This is a great illusion but, still it was too easy
i actually got all 6 f’s
I had no problem the first time *shrug*
That was pretty easy.
How come i counted all 6?AND i read out both the’s Im boring :(
Alright – you said 3 f’s is normal 4 f’s is rare. I got 4 f’s … twice! What’s wrong with me???
easy, got both on my first try
I found all six on the first try. does this make me a genius!?
i think u dont process the OF’s becuase the F in OF sounds like a V when u pronounce it
HAH! got it on my first try
I got six without even reading it, my awesome teacher in 5th grade showed me that
I read it as “a bird in the sky the bush” :S i must be strange!
the riangle one i did first try
anf i only counted 4 f’s woah that is weird
ya, both of these were way too easy, i still do not understand how it is hard to find 6 F’s in something, nor how it is difficult to tell there are two “the’s” in the first.
I am doing a science experiment on this illusion and i was wondering if anyone knew the original website or where I can find more information about this illusion.
Hah, both on first try. w00t!
i’m russian, and found 6 F. i think russians are able to hear all these “F”…i dont know why=)
piece of cake ive found 6 f’s
i read 6 “F”s from the begining.. but the double “the” i hadnt seen, pretty clever
I’ve seen this before..or else it would’ve taken me longer…a lot longer. It’s pretty cool though.
I only got three “f”s, but my brain is damaged because I used the tobacco drug.
I did it instantly. It is so easy!
I got it in one go. I must be a genius…
i would just like to say that i got 6 out of 6 f’s!!
it might be because i’ve done that sort of thing before so i was very careful about reading all the f’s.
with the bird in the bush one though i only noticed the extra the when i read the explanation and then it seemed really obvious… strange and cool :D
Wow, that really is something! I only got 3! I was like, how could I of possiblely miss that?
Well, the first didn’t work… maybe it’s because English isn’t my native language, so I had to think too much ^_^
But the Second… HAHA, counted 4 Fs, i’m rare +happy+
i saw the double “the” but only after reading it a few times wronge…
IM A GENIUS!
i didnt have any problems with either on the first go…
I did count six “F” – but I’m not an english natural speaker. I think that’s it! If a language is not the mother-tongue, you see the words more precisely…
But – a great article!
(I’ll search for an pendant for the german language…)
I hope you could understand what I did mean… :o)
i spotted the 2wice and counted 6 Fs.
wow some people are conceited. good job on spotting f’s on your first try here’s one hand clapping for you
Omg i got 6
but maybe co zi have done this like heaps of times lol
(oooo im a comlete genius
There is nothing wrong with are brains, if anything, the triangle shows its brilliance. I minds merely tallied the error and corrected it without us thinking about it. Its not us “noticing” the problem, its our brains using its visual memory to correct the problem.
hahahh thats great!
i love the 2nd one!
ive seen the 1st one before but not the 2nd one.
any reason why the line breaks are in between words?
does that affect anything??
please respond if you know vurdlak :)
btw..what country do you live in? or whats your nationality?
Strangely. I got them both right on the first try,
I counted 6 F’s and I said the word The twice.
Anyone care to explain?
i got all 6 f’s on the first try. i m a true genius. lol. just kidding. i did that one b4. as for theother on ei read “a bird in the bush” even thouhg i realized later that i had done that one before too. me dumb. lol
thats cool the reasion it dose that is because our brain see the biger pic in this situation a university stuby explines that the hunan brain sees the whule word instead of the induviudual leffers as you con probably read this with littel to no probjems same applys to sentences you read the sentence not the induvidual words
That is cool. iI only payed attention to the begining’s.
6 f’s and 2 the’s in the first try
i got the first two but missed the 3rd of
that was to easy. i didnt see how you could not do it right.
They used these in the Optical Illusions Test, too. Once I finished that, I knew the answer to both of them. (That exact same paragraph (second one and first one, except with the first one, it’s a different saying) is in the Optical Illusions Test.) :)
I think my brain is like a super-computer, or something! I got both right.. :S
Holy s#@*!
man i was so bound and determined to get that second one right yet i still thought 3 neway
lol i looked at every letter of every word 3 times and only counted 3 man i feel stupid
LOL!!! That is neat! :)
on the first try i only got four but that is so cool im gonna write that down then show my friends