What is the Thatcher Effect? Why do upside down faces confuse us?

[@chrisegg7936]

i dunno, i feel like it’s pretty clear that my brain is latching on to “correct“ images of mouths and eyes and just filling in the space around it. Once the effect was pointed out, it was pretty easy for me to realize that the right side up mouths and eyes didn’t match up with an upside down head, and neither image longer looked "correct" from then on. Still very interesting, but i don’t feel like there’s a big mystery here. Also the inverted thatcherized images are creepy as hell.

[@SanatieFyre]

neither photo looked correct to me right away, i could tell the mouth and eyes were not right even while upside down. It was pretty cool how much WORSE the face looked when returned right side up tho and the face in the shadow was pretty cool/creepy.

[@HD-ty8ng]

yes, same here

[@thekingofdoms]

same here

[@tyrannosaurustits7083]

This illusion is just dumb tbh

[@Azenith-]

good god it's terrifying just like margaret thatcher

[@LearningCurveScience]

I know, it's a strange effect indeed.

[@MrAnthonyIII]

I've noticed it only works for neutral faces but not ones where the person is smiling

[@LearningCurveScience]

Thank you. To be honest, that might have more to say about my fairly poor photoshop skills than the Thatcher effect

[@franklinturtle9849]

This effect doesn't work on me. I see the upside eyes and mouth looking weird either way.

[@ReflectiveLayerFilm]

It's really interesting that the monkeys are also fooled. That definitely says a lot about our combined evolutionary history. I wonder how many other human optical illusions will also fool other primates or even mammals in general.

[@LearningCurveScience]

Yes, thank you for the comment. It would be interesting to explore that I'm sure. I've seen videos of apes being fooled by magic tricks but a controlled scientific experiment would be very interesting.

[@WooFood]

Great vid! Very educational

[@LearningCurveScience]

Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@willshad]

I must be weird to me it is very obvious that the eyes and mouth are upside down.

[@LearningCurveScience]

That's very interesting. I do believe there are a small number of people who aren't fooled by the Thatcher effect. I'm not sure what causes that or what proportion of people aren't fooled, but it is not widespread. Most people are fooled by it.

[@peterpan05]

Same. I immediately noticed it was upside down- so searched for a better video to explain it. Glad to find your comment because I don’t seem to see the Thatcher Effect either.

[@meoantolin6955]

It's the examples.. the curved, smiling mouth looks too obvious. You can check other photos out there where the face has a blank expression, works much better 😂

[@LearningCurveScience]

@@meoantolin6955 Good point, and thanks for watching the video. My photoshop skills may have been sadly lacking.

[@MrAnthonyIII]

Yeah for me it depended on the picture, some of the faces looked normal when upside down but the ones with the big smiles looked weird

[@Umipumi]

Oh, so that's what does images are meant to be! I've seen pictures like that before but I always just see the same images so turning them upside down makes zero difference for me. So it's just that other people process faces in another way. Very interesting. Well anyway, the Thatcher Effect has no effect on me.

[@KXSocialChannel]

The answer is simple. Your brain analyses the individual components. However, it also has an ability to rotate. If the parts of the component look ok, then it doesn't rotate the image. This is why it doesn't rotate a thatcherized image.

[@e.s.r5809]

Huh. I have prosopagnosia, and in many of these I went "the mouth is upside down, it looks uncanny" but I _was_ still seeing a smiling face.

[@e.s.r5809]

Incidentally, I'm a portrait painter, and I often turn my artwork upside down to spot mistakes I've made with faces. I see the planes of the face and how shadows should fall easily that way, because they look more like 3D shapes. Right way up, I struggle to gauge whether features are in the correct proportion or perspective-- they don't work together as a whole face to my eyes.

[@YeOldeSpellbooke]

Very interesting and indepth video. I'v seen this effect before, but never like this. The part where you talk about where a face look normal to an ceraten angle was very telling. To me it looked like after an ceraten angle the picture physicaly morphed, even though i know i doesn't. One of those situations where you know what's going on, but your brain is stuck in evolution mode 😁 Great video, i'll definitely check out your other videos. Edit: My bad spelling...

[@LearningCurveScience]

Thank you very much. Yes it is quite weird that when turning the face around even though I know the eyes and mouth are upside down, I can't see it and the face looks normal. That's why I love this effect so much. Even though I know it's there I can't see it.

[@appanchappan5673]

@@LearningCurveScience guess It is the kind of nature of our mind

[@thejohoe96]

It doesn't look right to me upside down or upright 😭

[@RealJohnnyAngel]

This illusion doesn’t work on me anymore. It might be because I'm an artist who rotates my work (and reference) a lot, so built up exposure. But also ive examined in detail lot of faces. Even sculpted likenesses. I may have also trained myself to lool at what's there, not what i think is there more than most becauae that is apart of doing art studies.

[@nathanstamper7403]

I don’t know maybe it’s because I know it’s coming but none of these photos look normal upside down

[@iaimboti]

The first photo looked weird from the start to me (It was her cheeks, since the mouth was pointing "down" but the cheeks where in the wrong position to be a frown)

[@HD-ty8ng]

I''m wondering: You know the effect when you look at someones face upside down long enough that suddenly the face looks "incorrect"? As if the chin suddenly became the eyes or something weird like that? Is there a name or explanation for this phenomenon?

[@happmacdonald]

This is probably called "you reposted in the wrong neighborhood". 🙃

[@arnavthesceintist1149]

Nice video man

[@LearningCurveScience]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@Galatzo]

I like this tutorial of how to convert anyone into a Japanese demon

[@WildAscension]

People are just photoshopping the eyes and smiles upside down. If this were true we would literally see the face it’s normal way when flipped. This is just photoshop.

[@LearningCurveScience]

That's kind of the point, the eyes and mouth are photoshopped so they are the right way up even when the face is upside down. That's the whole illusion

[@adhdeity]

That thumbnail 😅😂😂

[@cherryblossoms5083]

THAT'S SO CREPPY 😭😭

[@acheronexile]

This feels like a page from the mandella catalog.

[@baine3388]

Okay I'm not sure if I'm looking at this wrong or what? But all of the upside down faces with inverted features immediately look wrong to me and all of the faces that are upside down with non-inverted features look totally normal to me. Am I just not affected by the Thatcher effect?

[@thecookiewooper1489]

You are affected by it, people edit it to make it thatcher which means it wont work on a normal photo that has not been thatchered

[@falsehq1831]

round round round and round round round round and round round go the Habsburgs

[@LearningCurveScience]

I'm not quite sure what the reference here is to. If it's a modern reference, don't forget I'm an ancient dinosaur. I know who the Habsburgs are though.

[@falsehq1831]

@@LearningCurveScience the infamous facial features of the Habsburg monarchs, would presumably go unnoticed when rotated upside down, the rest is part of a nursery rhyme

[@zathenakyla4945]

that is so scary

[@zathenakyla4945]

look at the face

[@AnimeAddictNekoChan]

a bit strange? it's nightmare fuel!

[@WildAscension]

2:10 you didn’t change the face with photoshop during this part of the video so when you flip the screen the face looks exactly the same. This is all phony photoshop bullshit. Nice try lol

[@LearningCurveScience]

Yes you're quite correct, I didn't change the face during that part of the video. It was to explain that chins are expected at the bottom of the face and not the top. I did change a number of the faces using photoshop, that was kind of the point of the video, the the upside down face with the mouth and eyes the right way up doesn't look strange until you turn the face the right way up. Apologies if you missed that bit.

[@aguyyoudontknow]

What kind of BS is this? The picture upside down doesn't look normal at all

[@jag0937eb]

It's because thatcher was devil spawn.

[@zathenakyla4945]

that is so so scary

[@LearningCurveScience]

Yes I agree, it is very strange, thanks for watching