By 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!

Read out loud the text inside the triangle below:

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:

Count every ‘F‘ in the following text:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
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!

Comments

125 Responses
  1. poncho says:

    wow its awsome i kept like 5 mins trying to see what was the trick in this

  2. t3knomanser says:

    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.

  3. Tiny says:

    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.

  4. Henk says:

    It’s only that i read the answer that i counted 6 “F”s otherwise i would still count 3 “F”s its amazing !!!

  5. Jeff says:

    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.

  6. Soulseeker says:

    I fell fot both of them… whats sad is that i’ve seen the “F” one before…. bad memory i guess :D

  7. Kristina says:

    I got them both right away….but I have seen them before so I guess it doesn’t really count as me being genius.

  8. Samu says:

    this is cool :)

  9. Amy says:

    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!

  10. geNA says:

    HAHA WOW I FOUND 3 AND I HAD TO LOOK AGAIN TO FIND 5 I STILL CANT FIND 6 HAHA

  11. reay says:

    what the hell just happened

  12. keper says:

    I’m Italian (excuse me for my english).
    I had counted 6 F, it’s intersting because english is not my native language.

  13. tjololo says:

    I don’t get it. I just read a bird in the bush.
    What’s the trick?

  14. tjololo says:

    Oh! Now I see

  15. Tracy says:

    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.

  16. permenent grip says:

    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

  17. Evall_Gummy_Jelly_Penguin says:

    whoa….i feel dumb now!I CANT BELIEVE I DIDNT SEE THOSE F’S! :O

  18. caleb says:

    i got the first one wrong but the second one right!

  19. Tori says:

    i got the first one wrong but the second one right, all you have to do is read backwards!

  20. Jacque Chiraque says:

    Chuck Norris can see 7.

  21. Anonymous says:

    i COUNTED 6 THE FIRST TIME, SO WAHT DOES THAT MEAN?

  22. Anonymous says:

    wow i got this on the first try. if you failed this, its just kinda sad.

  23. Anonymous says:

    Umm Acutuall I Did Count 5 F’s…

  24. anna says:

    i dont know why but somehow it doesnt work on me…

  25. Anonymous says:

    I’d rather be pretty than smart

  26. Anonymous says:

    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

  27. Anonymous says:

    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.

  28. Anonymous says:

    I got the 6 “f”s in the first try… is it because English is my second language?

  29. adam says:

    Both were very easy. Counted 6 “f’s” and i noticed the double the.

  30. adam says:

    jut kidding about the above comment

  31. adam says:

    That above comment saying just kidding isnt real i still got the f’s and the x2

  32. Anonymous says:

    This is a great illusion but, still it was too easy

  33. Anonymous says:

    i actually got all 6 f’s

  34. William says:

    I had no problem the first time *shrug*

  35. Ryan says:

    That was pretty easy.

  36. Anonymous says:

    How come i counted all 6?AND i read out both the’s Im boring :(

  37. Nate says:

    Alright – you said 3 f’s is normal 4 f’s is rare. I got 4 f’s … twice! What’s wrong with me???

  38. Anonymous says:

    easy, got both on my first try

  39. Luke says:

    I found all six on the first try. does this make me a genius!?

  40. Anonymous says:

    i think u dont process the OF’s becuase the F in OF sounds like a V when u pronounce it

  41. Mster24 says:

    HAH! got it on my first try

  42. Anonymous says:

    I got six without even reading it, my awesome teacher in 5th grade showed me that

  43. Anonymous says:

    I read it as “a bird in the sky the bush” :S i must be strange!

  44. lucy says:

    the riangle one i did first try
    anf i only counted 4 f’s woah that is weird

  45. wondershaman says:

    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.

  46. Anonymous says:

    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.

  47. Genius!! says:

    Hah, both on first try. w00t!

  48. Anonymous says:

    i’m russian, and found 6 F. i think russians are able to hear all these “F”…i dont know why=)

  49. Anonymous says:

    piece of cake ive found 6 f’s

  50. Anonymous says:

    i read 6 “F”s from the begining.. but the double “the” i hadnt seen, pretty clever

  51. Anonymous says:

    I’ve seen this before..or else it would’ve taken me longer…a lot longer. It’s pretty cool though.

  52. Anonymous says:

    I only got three “f”s, but my brain is damaged because I used the tobacco drug.

  53. Taegan says:

    I did it instantly. It is so easy!

  54. Anonymous says:

    I got it in one go. I must be a genius…

  55. Anonymous says:

    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

  56. Sam says:

    Wow, that really is something! I only got 3! I was like, how could I of possiblely miss that?

  57. Luna says:

    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+

  58. Anonymous says:

    i saw the double “the” but only after reading it a few times wronge…

  59. Anonymous says:

    IM A GENIUS!

  60. Anonymous says:

    i didnt have any problems with either on the first go…

  61. Anonymous says:

    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)

  62. the technogirl says:

    i spotted the 2wice and counted 6 Fs.

  63. Jake says:

    wow some people are conceited. good job on spotting f’s on your first try here’s one hand clapping for you

  64. Anonymous says:

    Omg i got 6
    but maybe co zi have done this like heaps of times lol

    (oooo im a comlete genius

  65. Anonymous says:

    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.

  66. lisa :] says:

    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?

  67. Anonymous says:

    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?

  68. Anonymous says:

    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

  69. Anonymous says:

    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

  70. Anonymous says:

    That is cool. iI only payed attention to the begining’s.

  71. Anonymous says:

    6 f’s and 2 the’s in the first try

  72. Anonymous says:

    i got the first two but missed the 3rd of

  73. Fawb says:

    that was to easy. i didnt see how you could not do it right.

  74. Delenn says:

    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.) :)

  75. A Modest Mouse says:

    I think my brain is like a super-computer, or something! I got both right.. :S

  76. Annihilis says:

    Holy s#@*!

  77. Ms.Observant says:

    man i was so bound and determined to get that second one right yet i still thought 3 neway

  78. who wants to know says:

    lol i looked at every letter of every word 3 times and only counted 3 man i feel stupid

  79. PaperMoon says:

    LOL!!! That is neat! :)

  80. purplepeopleeater says:

    on the first try i only got four but that is so cool im gonna write that down then show my friends

Speak Your Mind

You can add some images too.