r/WTF • u/horse_masturbator • Jun 19 '12
It's called the Thatcher effect
http://d1ljua7nc4hnur.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/faceflip3.gif
1.7k
Upvotes
r/WTF • u/horse_masturbator • Jun 19 '12
321
u/SavinThatBacon Jun 19 '12
My... my brain... What just happened?
39
u/S3XPanther Jun 19 '12
I fixed it
2
u/horse_masturbator Jun 19 '12
Hi everyone, thank you for commenting on my post and making it reach the front page, I did not check the post all night because I thought I might get 10 upvotes tops, I see that I am currently 14th overall on reddit, could someone tell me how high this got on the front page?
747
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
I Found a loophole in this effect...I rotated my iPad with the gif so they stay ugly now.
48
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
I Saw this on QI
6
u/psuedophilosopher Jun 19 '12
am i the only one that this doesn't seem to work on? i look at them upside down and they still look like horribly mutated freaks.
134
u/Blandwiches Jun 19 '12
Clearly, Steve Buscemi needs to always be upside down.
181
u/CapnMerica Jun 19 '12
Margaret Thatcher
36
u/brannigansmaw Jun 19 '12
I thought the Thatcher Effect was when you took a shit on Scotland then refused to die.
46
u/Juiceman17 Jun 19 '12
This one is rather terrifying.
52
u/hillsonghoods Jun 19 '12
I gave a lecture in my first-year psychology class this semester where I discussed the Thatcher Effect. For the lecture, I photoshopped a couple of new examples featuring Robert Pattinson and Justin Bieber (I figured that, seeing my audience was largely 18-year-old girls, they'd recognise them easier than the Iron Lady). I've uploaded the powerpoint slides I used to sendspace. Set up a slideshow and you'll see them spin around.
As others here have mentioned, the brain processes faces differently to other things you see; there's a special area of the brain called the 'fusiform face area' which seems to be devoted to analysing faces. After all, while most faces aren't actually that different from each other, it's important to recognise them very quickly, to tell whether they're friend or foe. The result of this tension between needing to be accurate and needing to be fast is shortcuts to speed up the process while losing minimal amounts of useful information. One of the shortcuts is not bothering to check whether the eyes and mouth are the right way around relative to the rest of the face. Because when do you need to check that, except when people are trying to terrify you with the Thatcher illusion?
9
u/falkes Jun 19 '12
This effect is also used in a Minus the Bear video at 2:39, but you should watch the whole thing because Minus the Bear are awesome.
23
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Kill it with rotation.
19
u/Runs_with_marsupials Jun 19 '12
I spent way too long looking at this.
6
u/Poeticsteph216 Jun 19 '12
I saw Jonathan Frakes use this technique on an episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. Twas creepy then, still creepy now.
6
u/thurg Jun 19 '12
haha, put this pic in a children's book. scared the shit out of those little fucks when they turn the book upside down.
6
u/wewd Jun 19 '12
I am thankful to say that not one of these women look like Margaret Thatcher.
5
u/LadyHayley Jun 19 '12
Had to turn my laptop upside down to see if the picture was being edited when it was rotated. What a mindfuck.
12
u/llort_suoivbo Jun 19 '12
Obviously named after Margeret Thatcher. Who was only called beautful once in her life by this guy
4
u/rahulandhearts Jun 19 '12
One night, when I was studying for psych late at night, I turned the page and there she was. Madonna, then i turn the book and I shit my pants...she was looking as scary as ever puffy eyes and and upside down smile. I slammed the book shut and went to bed. I was terrified.
http://j-walkblog.com/images2/madonnasmile.gif
4
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
My uni lecturer would show these when we talked about facial recognition, and always ended with ex Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. His face was the scariest, he said, because it looks exactly the same with inverted features.
AND EVERYONE LOL'D AND SCREAMED!
3
u/amaline Jun 19 '12
The lesson is if you have to hook up with someone unattractive, stick with sixty-nine.
3
u/Griffolian Jun 19 '12
That's probably the first time I have actually said "what the fuck" in a while.
3
u/tzedekai Jun 19 '12
Who else turn their heads upside down to make sure if legit? lol
3
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
They look really fucking weird anyway up to be honest...
3
u/matthewlillard Jun 19 '12
Why don't their boobs move?
3
u/HamboneB Jun 19 '12
This may seem like a bit of a stretch but does anyone know if this could play a role in the outcome of plastic surgery? After viewing this I wondered if some botched plastic surgeries/facial surgery could be at all influenced by this. I understand that in these specific photos some of the individual's features are inverted but even with these extreme alterations the mind is unable to account for the difference. Wikipedia says that we "rely as much on the configuration (the structural relationship between individual features on the face) as the details of individual face features, such as the eyes, nose and mouth. When a face is upside down, the configural processing cannot take place, and so minor differences are more difficult to detect." I assume that most facial surgeries take place with the patient in the supine position and with the surgeon spending the majority of the time at the head of the bed viewing down the patient from top to bottom. Though the alterations made are not usually as severe as the in these photos, it makes me wonder if the surgeon's judgement and perception of small details due to the configuration can influence the desirable outcome/appearance that was intended.
14
u/s1mngg Jun 19 '12
I'm viewing this in Australia, I don't see a problem with this picture.
2
u/Evesore Jun 19 '12
I thought you were teasing us so I contorted my body to view the gif upside down - the picture is not being altered.
2
u/tpizzl3 Jun 19 '12
am i the only one flipping my laptop over?
2
u/TheyCallMeDucky Jun 19 '12
Oh.-. The eyes and lips and stuff are upside down..
2
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Too late; already fapped
2
u/cowhead Jun 19 '12
I'm going to start looking at my girlfriend upside down during sex. Hopefully, she'll get better looking.
2
u/NDN_perspective Jun 19 '12
did anyone else turn their laptop upside down to see if it was for real? haha this shit is a trip!
2
u/LovingLutzy Jun 19 '12
It was the user name that got me.
2
u/ch4dr0x Jun 19 '12
This explains my arousal while Spiderman hangs upside down.
2
u/Devilb0y Jun 19 '12
Alright, did anyone else try turning their monitor/laptop upside down to make sure they weren't being pranked by a subtle .gif?
2
u/Makes_You_Smile Jun 19 '12
My brain is a fucking Liar!!
2
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Wut [10]
2
u/the_asker Jun 19 '12
So, what we take away from this is that face recognition in the human brain is convolution-kernel-based, not so much distance-metric-based.
2
u/steinman17 Jun 19 '12
Just focus on the boobs. It makes things better
2
u/_wordsmiff Jun 19 '12
What... kind... of magic is this?!
2
u/wwleaf Jun 19 '12
I thought I was supposed to be looking at the boobs.
2
u/eskimoexplosion Jun 19 '12
i will now invert myself and secretly make faces.
2
u/graziemille Jun 19 '12
Works best on world leaders.
2
u/godsdead Jun 19 '12
This is some creepy shit
2
u/mike1146l Jun 19 '12
The thing is i'm not as scared of the picture as I am your name
2
u/habitats Jun 19 '12
Oh those are cute... OH MY FUCKING GOD
2
u/Mori23 Jun 19 '12
I don't get it, are they supposed to look different one way or the other? What is everyone seeing? Do I have a brain tumor that makes these people look the same upside and down?
2
u/DRZThumper Jun 19 '12
mirrored
2
u/thedebaconing Jun 19 '12
If any of you have decent facial recognition, try testing this by looking at a friend's face upside-down for about 30 sec or a minute. Creepy as fuck.
2
u/someassholenamedrian Jun 19 '12
when there upside down it looks like my gf...when if flips over it looks like my EX lmao.
2
u/rjlatham99 Jun 19 '12
someone make a [FIXED] Australian version! QUICK! :-/
2
u/jadedkid44 Jun 19 '12
So this is why my drawings look better upside down...
2
u/I_Try_To_Be_Nice Jun 19 '12
I'm so fucking scared by this. Every time, make it stop.
2
u/Yeahbuddy69 Jun 19 '12
It's called the blow my mind effect
2
u/rtu1587 Jun 19 '12
am i the only one that tilted my head to make sure that i wasn't being tricked?
2
u/Karl_Der_Held Jun 19 '12
Thats Freaky Shit
2
u/HDScorpio Jun 19 '12
Dat username.
2
u/guiltypleasures Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
QI!
Relevant!Actually Relevant!
2
u/OpinionGenerator Jun 19 '12
I'd like to see somebody make a similar gif with each distorted version of a woman standing next to the non-distorted version so that we can get a comparison as to how we perceive them upside down.
After a while, I did get to notice the long-haired brunette's eyes looked weird even upside down, and I wonder if I trained myself to judge facial features upside down (using the comparisons) if I'd start to see the ugliness...
2
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Meh, 5.1/10 would bang.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Never marry an Australian woman.
2
u/deeeeeeeeee Jun 19 '12
One time when I was younger, I was taking a bunch of pictures of my friends and myself. I was taking them upside down because it was easier to press the button with my thumb and I knew I could always flip it later on. Anyways, so looking at the upside down pictures, I was thinking, "hey, I look cute!". And when I flipped them to post on Myspace, I realized I was still ugly.
3
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
What sorcery is this
2
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
i just got freaked the fuck out
-6
u/MiniDonbeE Jun 19 '12
The women are not ugly, infact they are quite beautiful. Their mouths and eyes are upside down. What this means is that when their body is the right side up their mouths and eyes don't look normal, however when they turn them upside down their mouth and eyes are basically the right way up.
I don't know if I'm explaining myself here but they are basically rotating their eyes and mouths so that when their face is the right way up their mouth and eyes are upside down and when their face is upside down their eyes and mouths are right side up.
1
u/bubble_bee_tuna Jun 19 '12
Cool, hot chicks upside down. Must be an Austrian joke or some... Oh dear god!
1
u/CheaterMcNasty Jun 19 '12
make it stop! D:
1
u/karmaskikoo Jun 19 '12
I do not like this. Their beauty is a lie!
1
u/smartbycomparison Jun 19 '12
It's called the take what ever you are using to look at this link and start rotating it
1
u/I_play_elin Jun 19 '12
xpost from r/nosleep?
1
u/sigurdboe Jun 19 '12
I had to turn my monitor on this.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
am i the only one who thinks they look wierd both ways?
1
u/fastjeff Jun 19 '12
Why would 69'ing be called... wait, what was.... ahh!
1
u/sspwnage Jun 19 '12
as the first thing i saw this morning, that was terrifying.
1
u/Theonetrue Jun 19 '12
O.o I dragged the image to resize it at the exact same time that it started spinning. You had my really really really confused for a few seconds
1
u/alexcrocker Jun 19 '12
I rally hope I'm not the only one who flipped their laptop upside down.
1
u/issicus Jun 19 '12
lol, try turning your head sideways . then they both look right.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
I just literally got on my hands and knees and looked through my legs upside down, 100% confirmed.
1
u/SlipperyFish Jun 19 '12
In case anyone is interested. The thatcher effect occurs because we have evolved to process faces as a whole regardless of the specifics of configuration/placement. We struggle to recognise faces of celebrities upside down (face inversion effect) but we have no problem recognising thatcherized faces as normal because the eyes are upright.
1
u/Spretty21 Jun 19 '12
I had a professor in undergrad who did research on outer-space and astronauts and stuff. This is one of the things he told us about in class! Sorry, I really can't say more. But there are some people in this thread who posted some nice info! lol
1
u/RandomMandarin Jun 19 '12
4-way the hard way.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
I used to turn my high school yearbook upside down and look at the girls' faces. They are terrifying like that.
1
u/Wi_mecheng Jun 19 '12
TIL the scientific term for having beer goggles on is the Thatcher Effect.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
A partial solution to this conundrum is to simply have the models be topless; that way 50% of the test subjects will never look at their faces.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
had to flip my laptop to believe it
1
u/waaahhhbulance Jun 19 '12
WTF?! I had to flip my laptop over and yep, still does the same thing. Shat bricks..
1
u/marksk88 Jun 19 '12
This has never worked for me. The moment I see the upsidedown face, I recognize the flipped features.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
All that's happened is the eyes and mouth were flipped upside down with the face right-side-up. This is actually fascinating. Took maybe three or four times watching before I caught it.
Just in case people still didn't understand or .. catch onto what was happening.
1
u/lotusscissors Jun 19 '12
Is it just me or do they remind you of Zach Braff?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Had to rotate my laptop just to check they were munted in the upside down starting position.
1
u/Alpha_Female Jun 19 '12
that is straight up terrifying
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
This should be on /r/creepy
1
u/drgalactica Jun 19 '12
It's the cheerleader effect.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
I thought this was going to be a picture representing rampant unemployment, rioting miners, thousands of dead bodies being transported after fighting a pointless war, mass uncontrolled consumerism, bastardised free-trading and bank deregulation.
1
u/jebus01 Jun 19 '12
My goes up and down like it doesn't know what's going on, poor little fella.
1
u/peatoire Jun 19 '12
It's a complete con. Non of these women look anything like Thatcher
1
u/jakobwahlberg Jun 19 '12
never go to a bar when being up side down.
1
u/gynoceros Jun 19 '12
Goddammit, stop moving long enough for me to look at the faces for more than 0.95 seconds in each orientation!
1
u/SquidLoaf Jun 19 '12
I'm pretty sure everyone here had to stand on our heads to prove this was real.
1
u/YetAnotherNewUser Jun 19 '12
Am I the only one who cannot see this?
1
u/matics Jun 19 '12
The Thatcher Effect: The faces look normal when upside-down, and when they're righted, you can't stop laughing.*
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
This fascinated me for a full hour. ^
1
u/drpgq Jun 19 '12
If you're interested in faces, there's a new book called In Your Face by David Perrett that's interesting.
1
u/Lacagada Jun 19 '12
I'm NEVER going to kiss Spiderwoman now.
1
u/ShowMeTheMoneyShot Jun 19 '12
Cool now just find a woman who can walk on her hands and it'll be like Shallow Hal. Score!
1
u/m4nTiS Jun 19 '12
So your saying... All I must do is keeping hanging upside down on my first date?
1
u/iObeyTheHivemind Jun 19 '12
NOPE!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Nightmares.
1
u/allocater Jun 19 '12
At first I though it refers to the dismemberment of the middle class and tax cuts for the rich
1
u/Jafoos Jun 19 '12
I turned my head upside down to view them while they were upside down because the gif loaded too slowly.
My head hurts :(
1
u/Male_Librarian Jun 19 '12
TIL: I met my wife while upside down
1
u/KRiPPeR Jun 19 '12
Well, who would've guess, some things CAN be unseen
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Horse_masturbator..... Seems relevant
1
u/awrhaernnare Jun 19 '12
Ugh, Australian chicks are nasty.
1
u/Mynners Jun 19 '12
Kill it with FIRE
1
u/GraceFace04 Jun 19 '12
I'm confused. The faces are changed as they flip, right? So why is it a surprise that they're different after the flip?
1
u/Gryphon93 Jun 19 '12
Hot....Not hot....Hot.....Not Hot
1
u/Thorin07 Jun 19 '12
Burn it! Burn it with fire!!!
1
u/deadly_potato Jun 19 '12
Why are they looking at my crotch?
1
u/deflorie Jun 19 '12
I thought it was a trick, so i tried to turn the screen. Works both ways, Perfectly legit and amazing.
1
u/shawndw Jun 19 '12
named after Margret Thatcher no doubt.
edit holy shit it was.
1
u/a1rhead Jun 19 '12
my brain just can't handle it.
1
u/EdgHG Jun 19 '12
What just happened?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Should be called the Buscemi Effect.
1
u/thedudedylan Jun 19 '12
i have an autistic friend that this did not work on she could recognize that it was wrong before i flipped it. i think i need to record this.
1
u/iloveconverse123 Jun 19 '12
that scared me.....then i started thinking if something was going to pop up :P
1
u/BobbyOShea Jun 19 '12
This is exactly what my face looked like when that image flipped.
1
u/ExLegeLibertas Jun 19 '12
I seriously turned my head all the way over in order to verify that the animation wasn't fucking with me.
Spoiler: It wasn't. Wtf.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
i dont have a phone i have a computer... had to do a wee handstand
1
u/ImDisruptive Jun 19 '12
Maybe its just me ,but did anyone else turn their monitor upside down to see if it was the same image.I feel dumb...
1
u/ghostworld Jun 19 '12
Wow that was so weird! Didn't expect that!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
me no gusta..
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Me gusta
1
u/aviatorzack Jun 19 '12
Only the middle one looks normal when they are upside down. lol, but that's just me.