“Most famous optical illusion” shows two women – but most people can only see one

An optical illusion involving two women causes confusion. The picture, entitled “My Wife and My Mother-in-Law,” shows a young, elegantly dressed woman with her back to the field of view, with tightly curled hair, a large hat and a feather coat.

But there is also a second figure in the puzzle – an older woman who is harder to spot. On Reddit, one user expressed frustration at only being able to see one person.

They titled the puzzle: “Apparently there is an old lady and a young lady. But I can only see the young one.”

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Others, however, were quick to point out how to spot the other woman. “The chin is the old lady’s nose,” wrote one. Another agreed: “The ear is the old lady’s eye.”

“The necklace is the old lady’s mouth,” added a third. “She looks like Baba Yaga,” joked another.

However, some people couldn’t see the young woman and were fixated on the hidden older lady. “I can only see the old lady,” wrote one, while others were still baffled even after the riddle was explained. “Somehow I still don’t see it,” said one.

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“My Wife and My Mother-in-Law” was drawn by cartoonist William Ely Hill and first published in the US humor magazine Puck in November 1915. It included the caption: “They are both in this picture – Find them.”

The puzzle then rose to fame in 1930, when American psychologist Edwin Boring wrote about the image in an essay titled “A New Ambiguous Figure.” It has since been called the “Boring Figure” and has appeared in numerous experiments and textbooks in the 109 years since its publication.