Human beings are wired to love challenges. Since the beginning of mankind’s history on the planet, we’ve had to solve problems and face challenges to survive. The strongest people were the ones who embraced a challenge. Indeed, they were the ones who survived. Just imagine a caveman who was afraid to try to start a fire, or didn’t want to experiment with better ways to move things and people around (and invent the wheel). The fact is, these early innovative cavemen who survived hard times were the kind of people who thrived on challenges. And our brains love challenges as well.
The human brain loves a challenge, and when we solve a challenge or puzzle correctly, the brain rewards us with some feel-good chemicals like dopamine and other things. But what about optical illusions? They’re confusing, right? So why do we love them so much? An optical illusion is something that we’re seeing one way but that disagrees with the physical reality. When we realize we’re seeing something completely different, it astonishes us, causing our brains to perk up and pay attention. In the image below, there are obviously two horses, but there’s only one visible horse’s head. The question is this: Which horse does the head belong to? Do you think you can figure it out?
Did you figure out which horse the head belonged to? If you’re stumped as we are, head over to the next page for the solution.