Subscribe by EmailEasily solve “spot the difference” pictures within seconds
June 8, 2007 by Geeks are Sexy | 23 comments
Remember those ‘Spot the difference pictures’ puzzle games when you were a kid? Remember how long it took you to find them all? I had troubles – enough so that I was the last person to finish them and go out and play kickball! No longer, I say!
Introducing a sure-fire way to find all the differences in “spot the difference” picture puzzles in a matter of seconds. Only two requirements:
- You must have that “magic eye” skill used with those goofy pictures from the 90’s (involving crossing your eyes)
- The “spot the difference” pictures should be side by side for this technique to work. If they are below and above each other, just rotate the pictures/page so they are side by side. If they are skewed, you can tilt your head a bit…although you’d probably look a little funny.
Ok, once you have found a suitable picture…
- Stare at the pictures, begin to cross your eyes.
- You should see a third image appear between the two pictures.
- Focus on the middle picture, adjusting the tilt of your head so both pictures line up exactly.
- Once you’ve focused on the image, all the differences should look “luminescent”.
*This picture from AllStarPuzzles (click this link for the full size version)
The trick is to cross your eyes so that your left eye is looking at the right image, and your right eye is looking at the left image. Once they both line up, you should be focused on a joined image (a mesh of the two). The differences will “glow” because one eye is seeing something different than the other.
The real trouble to this technique is to convince your eyes to lock on to the third image, but once you get the hang of it, it should take you no time at all.
Now go and impress your drunk friends!
- New display technology breathes new life into still pictures
- The Difference Between Weight and Mass
- US Loses Top Spot in Networked Readiness Index
- Giant Chipmunks Meet Stormtroopers [Pictures]
Cool idea! imma destroy those puzzles now
Since i was about 14 i thought i was the only one who knew this, i forgot i could do it and then when i was about 20 i saw these games machines appear in pubs which had spot the difference on them. i realized i could do this again,i could spot the difference in literally <3 seconds ( to the amazement of my mates and sometimes some other random people) this was fun as it paid for my nights out (extra 200 quid from 2 machines was nice every week) at that point i decided to go and rinse as many machines as i possibly could… then they somewhat unfairly upgraded all machines with this game to make it IMPOSSIBLE to achieve the jackpot.. yes i have tried many many times but they really do cheat you. it is 100% impossible now (most unfair). Anyway it is a neat trick that has other uses sometimes aswell. gives you eye strain the first times you do it but you get used to it.
Another methodological approach of achieving these ends is essentially to advance your concentration (or focus) level.
To raise our concentration level, we are required to stimulate more brain activities.
And how then do we increase our concentration level?
The ensuing methods are my recommended suggestions that I would like to introduce and I hope that people would find it useful:
1. Counting
Keep active by counting the number of circles, oval shapes, dots, lines, pixels or any small objects that can be referenced from the photo.
This provides you with better opportunity of spotting the differences in the pictures when the discrepancies are not obvious to the eyes.
As such, the idea is essentially to promote brain activity in the left brain’s cerebral cortex on the basis that numbers and sequences are involved (Buzan 2007).
2. Reasoning
Put yourself in the creator’s shoe. From the past photos that you have played with, ask yourself this simple question: does the creator have the tendency of clustering the differences or segregating them into distinct objects?
If the latter is found to be true, then we can safely assume that once a discrepancy is found, there is no need to search the same object over and over again as this result in unnecessary time loss. It is intuitive that you shift your focus onto another disparate object and thereby, embracing prioritisation.
3. Group Them into Different Parts
When a photo is messy and it contains many disparate objects, simply group them into parts to prevent your brain from shutting off due to the overload of information.
4. Arousing Interest
If you are NOT enjoying yourself while searching for the differences in the photos, your brain will reduce the stimulation of brain activities.
Thus, it is of paramount important that you talk to yourself whilst looking through the photos (eg. “wow.. the scenery in the photo is beautiful”). Also, you can relate to any familiar memories that are already stored within your brain.
This interest stimulated promotes brain activity in the right brain’s cerebral cortex: imagination, daydreaming, colour, spatial awareness and dimension (Buzan 2007).
Overall, when all these methods are mutually incorporated, any differences in the photos can be spotted at ease and this provides you with the ability to achieve top scores without any difficulty. Please note that these methods introduced are not exhaustive. To those interested in playing this game, Facebook has a game called ’spot the difference’, go check it out and impress your friends now.
PS: My two cents worth.
AWESOME!
Where can I find more examples?
the guy in the second photo is different from the one in the first.
isn`t he?
very efficient method, i must say
oh, i forgot: it actually doesn’t matter whether you cross your eyes (left eye on the right picture, right eye on the left) or look straight through (left -> left, right -> right), as with those 3d pictures. The latter method is much easier to me, though.
Looking at them straight is easier for me as well, but you’re limited in the size of the stereograms you can look at this way.
Kudos that was cool!
It helps me actually to uncross my eyes from a crossed position.
wow..this is really cool… Thanks for the info
Easier, and less likely to give you a headache, just turn the pictures upside down. That way your brain sees the images rather than interpreting the shapes into meaning. In other words, you see “square, circle, arc” rather than “person”.
For more great pictures visit this side:
http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/display/777504
Very cool.
[...] http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2007/06/08/easily-solve-spot-the-difference-pictures-within-seconds/ SocializeThese icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
I’ve actually been doing this for years. I don’t remember whether I got the idea from stereo pairs or wallpaper images, but I’m pretty sure it was one of the two.
Niiiice… that’s awesome!
I’ve actually been doing this trick for years. The thing is you’re not crossing your eyes towards each other. If you focus on a distant object and you stick your finger into view without changing focus, you’ll see two fingers. This is because the brain combines the two focused images from far but the finger is at different angles to each of the eyes. This parallax error can be used to view two similar foreground images at once while actually focusing in the distance. With practice comes speed. For instance, focus far away again and stick up both your pointer fingers into view, unless you had some bad sawmill accident then you can just use pens…. you can set your fingers farther and farther apart and practice making them combine into one finger that is a combination of both in between the the left and right finger. I’ve never thought my super secret cheat to this bar room favorite would get out.
I can see a couple…I wanna do another one!
i found about 18 or 19 (cant remember… lol) differences in that thing…..
its cool
i love this site especially the name cuz geeks are sexy n i am, anyways love some more plz!!!!!!!
I can not seem to focus. I am gonna try again later.. I have a headache now. lol
Crossing my eyes just makes everything blurry. Doesn’t really work.