May 19, 2009 by Vurdlak with 98 Comments
Hey people! Just came home from Korcula island. I had a great time, except it was the worst moment to have hosting problems (when images were down). Gladly, all is fixed now! Let’s proceed with new post… In the Illusion of Sex Change, by Richard Russell of Harvard University, two faces are perceived as male and female. However, rest assured that the both faces are actually versions of the same androgynous face (neither male, nor female). One face was created by increasing the contrast of the androgynous face, while the other face was created by decreasing the contrast. The face with more contrast is perceived as female, while the face with less contrast is perceived as male. The Illusion of Sex Change demonstrates that contrast is an important cue for perceiving the sex of a face, with greater contrast appearing feminine, and lesser contrast appearing masculine. This optical illusion won the prize in 2009 optical illusion contest as well.
(46 votes)
Interesting…
Shows how easily we jump to conclusions.
It all boils down to our brain:
Men Historically worked, and hence got tan.
Women stayed inside and ‘made’ babies.
It seems strange that the higher contrast picture does not produce a higher contrast on the lips. The “female” has darker lips than the “male.” I would think that the higher contrast would also produce a higher contrast on the lip color. Maybe that is the illusion. The more defined lips actually is what produces the more “female” appearance.
Hmmmmmmmm
Pretty friggin awesome
NO SHIT?
remarkable site.love it. DIETER from XANTEN.
the one on the left looks more female because the face is brighter and there is better color difference between the lips. the one on the right looks more male because all of the colors blend toghether. in the real world, females tend to have better color differences in their skin/lips because they wear lipgloss and lipstick. females also tend to wear lotions to make their skin appear brighter.
That is an amazing illusion. It sure looks like a different image but if you look at each section piece by piece sure enough it is the same image!
First to vote :) will be raiding other posts too mwhahaha- i thought this one was most interesting out of this page, so i thought i’d give this one a vote, as it doesn’t deserve nil points.
Huh, I saw it as the other way around.
Its definitely same person, same face. I cant identify now which is which. Bcoz it was edited very well. It so tough though!
i want to thank the person who did his
the roght one is male & the 2nd is female ??
is that true ?
OF course the darker image looks male. Even a very carefully shaved male face is darker just because of the beard.
While I agree that the enhanced light makes the left look slightly more femanine, both images look masculine to me.
i must admit i once considered it.
very strongly.
i don’t much about this but
i think if doctors can do this.
why not just take a mans penis and transplant it so if a woman changes to a male.
she has the real deal.
Both are female, you can see by the eyebrows. They are plucked and look very smooth. Although if you replaced the eyebrows on the ‘man’, ‘he’ would look more like a man.
DUDE LOOKS LIKE A LADY
This illusion shows how subtle the human mind is. Given the smallest of differences, it makes a picture of reality. Instantly it decides for you, without you having to think about it. It is not a matter of male of female, right or wrong. We live in a frenetic world of uncertainty, the brain has chosen, and it is up to you to act upon it.
Hmmmm,
I don’t think the higher contrast face looks feminine, I think both faces look male, but the higher contrast face looks like a younger male, and the low contrast face looks like an older male. This is very interesting…
HOLLY
Hmm, so how would that work with dark skinned people? or very pale skinned people?
she or he , they are one person but the photoshop can do maney thing
The man looks kinda female to me.
No wonder girls are moody. Increased contrast.
Now maybe we’ll start copying this contrast into an RGB color scheme somehow, and start making some car paints.
Remember the illusion of the lit sphere? If the top of the sphere is brighter, it looks like a ball, but if the bottom is brighter, it looks concave. That’s because our brains evolved to interpret light as coming from above (the sun).
Maybe, in the face images, the variations in shading get interpreted as subtle differences in anatomy, and that’s what gives our brains the gender cues.
This is a terrible experiment, the researchers obviously did not think through their conclusion. The male vs female appearance has nothing to do with color contrast — color contrast is incidental. In reality, the reason why the face on the left looks female and the face on the right looks male is because the “more contrasted” face looks like it is wearing makeup, which we generally associate with females. The effect is purely social priming, based on gender association with makeup, and has nothing to do with contrast.
Well she’s all you’d ever want,
She’s the kind they’d like to flaunt and take to dinner.
Well she always knows her place.
She’s got style, she’s got grace, She’s a winner.
She’s a Lady. Whoa whoa whoa, She’s a Lady.
Its the same just one darker same to me
Why do you all keep saying they’re both pictures of a woman’s face or one is a man and one is a woman. They aren’t EITHER. “both faces are actually versions of the same androgynous face (neither male, nor female)”
And this is something we NATURALLY perceive. It isn’t because women “use lotions” or wear lipstick.
I think because women put on makeup and men don’t. Very simple.
for ny experiance that fist pic is computer cleanig and 2nd is pic whithout cleanning.
lol i thought right was man :o
For those saying the face is “definitely” male or female, it’s not, it’s the face average of many people of both genders.
They both look female to me.
I agree wiuth both Leopold and Ye Olde Cake. I mean I could’ve easily just posted a picture of me with my face down or pulled back and a little hair above the lip and who would know the difference. Plus, I am intersexed. I like the study and thought it was two people, a male and female, at first. Oddly enough, I would find either ‘attractive’.
lol I thought both looked female, also because of the eyebrows, I think.
But I figured the one on the right was more “male”..but I couldn’t figure out why!
not really. i ran a contrast and luiminance test untill i matched the skin color in photoshop and then overlayed the foto of the left which is supposed to perceived as feminine on the one to the right, using a difference algorythm
what surprise !!! not only has it higher contrast, but if you look really closely they have darkened around the eyes and the lips as well on the left slightly. as women are normally always seen wearing make up, of course the mayor outcome is that this picture would be perceived as female.
so this is all a bunch of bullshit
alex, you’re a bloody idiot. They turned the contrast up in the left image. Meaning where there are shadows, such as around the lips and eyes, the shadows darken slightly. The white/highlighted parts of the face lighten. the contrast between the two is going to increase, so yeah, it looks like they darkened the shadowed areas. Your “difference algorythm” would only work if you had the original image to test. And you don’t. It is not as if this is a ground-breaking enough study for them to lie about that. It is nothing but a contrast change between the two photos.
yeah, increasing contrast lessens the range of gray in an image, making whites brighter and blacks darker. therefore defining highlights and darkening shadows. lower contrast creates an increased range of gray in the image creating a softer look
The left pic looks female because the higher contrast makes it look like it’s wearing makeup — eyeshadow, eyebrows done, and lipstick.
they both look female
Yeah , I agree they Both Looks Like a Female!!!
I wonder if more contrast just looks female because women wear makeup, not the other way around…
I actually saw the contrast change and could tell why it was an illusion before reading the explanation :)
come on guys ! its obvious !
Screw it….Id bang both of em..
lol Alex you’re amazing
@ alex lol yeah there both hot either way