For the past two days, a new internet debate has sparked up: is the cat going upstairs or downstairs? This seemingly simple photo has divided people worldwide, with each side fiercely defending their interpretation. It’s a debate that has echoes of other iconic rivalries—like Democrats versus Republicans or Red Sox fans versus Yankees fans.
So, who’s right? To break down what’s happening, we reached out to an expert. Nick Chater, a professor of Behavioral Science at Warwick Business School in the UK, shared his insights on this visual illusion. Chater explained that this cat photo taps into how our brains interpret 3D images based on limited 2D cues.
According to Chater, our brains are wired to turn 2D images into 3D interpretations. “Most of the time, our brain is spectacularly good at solving this problem,” he said. Usually, there’s only one “sensible” 3D interpretation for an image, so we don’t even think about it. But with certain tricky images, like the famous Necker cube, our brains flip back and forth between different interpretations.
In this case, Professor Chater says, the illusion comes from a subtle detail in the photo. There’s a gray, undefined square near the top of the image, which our brains could interpret as either a ceiling or a floor. “When we interpret the cat as descending, the gray square appears to be part of the ceiling.” But when we see the cat as going upstairs, that same gray square looks like part of the floor,” Chater explained. The angle between this gray area and the stairs is the key. If our brain interprets it as a ceiling, it sees an acute, roughly 45-degree angle, making the cat appear to descend. If it interprets it as a floor, it forms an obtuse angle, around 135 degrees, suggesting the cat is climbing up.
So, which interpretation is the correct one? Frustratingly, Chater says there’s no definitive answer. “If only we could determine the exact angle of the mysterious gray square, we’d know for sure if it’s a floor or ceiling,” he said. But the image doesn’t give us enough clues, so we’re left switching back and forth between two plausible interpretations.
In the end, this clever optical illusion has left even the experts stumped. Without more context or a statement from the image creator, we may never know for certain. For now, the “upstairs or downstairs” mystery is one of those internet puzzles that will likely remain unresolved, leaving the world split and captivated.
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