You’ve seen it. Everyone has. It’s that scratchy, black-and-white sketch where one second you’re looking at a posh young woman turning her head away, and the next, you’re staring at the profile of an elderly woman with a prominent nose and a heavy chin. It’s called "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law." Honestly, it’s probably the most famous optical illusion in history. But here’s the kicker: your brain is actually physically incapable of seeing both women at the exact same time. You flip-flop. You toggle. But you never, ever see them simultaneously.
This image of old lady and young lady isn't just a parlor trick or a meme from the pre-internet era. It’s a foundational tool in psychological research. It tells us a lot about how we categorize people, how our age influences our perception, and how the brain handles "bistable" stimuli. It’s weird to think that a drawing from the late 19th century still dictates how modern neurologists understand the visual cortex, but here we are.
Most people think they have a "correct" way of seeing. They don't. Your brain is basically making a best guess based on a messy pile of visual data.
The Weird History Behind the Sketch
It didn’t start with a viral post. Not even close. While many people associate the image of old lady and young lady with cartoonist William Ely Hill, who published it in Puck magazine in 1915, the concept is actually much older. It appeared on a German postcard back in 1888. Hill titled his version "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law," adding a caption that claimed "They are both in this picture — find them."
It worked. People went nuts for it.
The drawing is a "perceptual reversal" masterpiece. If you look at the "young lady," her chin serves as the "old lady's" nose. The young woman's ear is the old woman's eye. The necklace on the young girl? That’s the old woman’s mouth. It’s a perfect overlap of features. Psychologists call this an ambiguous figure. Your eyes take in the lines, but your frontal lobe decides which "mental map" to overlay on top of those lines.
Why Your Own Age Changes What You See
There was a fascinating study done in 2018 at Flinders University in Australia. Researchers Mike Nicholls and Rayne Glynn-Adey decided to see if the observer's age changed how they saw the image of old lady and young lady. They showed the picture to about 393 participants ranging from 18 to 68 years old. They showed it for just half a second.
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The results were kind of incredible.
Younger people almost always saw the young woman first. Older people? They saw the mother-in-law. This suggests something called "own-age bias." We are subconsciously tuned to recognize faces that look like our own or fit into our own social peer group. Basically, your brain is biased toward what it knows. If you’re 22, your brain is scanning the world for other 20-somethings. When it sees those ambiguous lines, it fills in the gaps with a youthful face because that’s what’s relevant to you.
It’s not just about "eyesight." It’s about social processing.
How the Brain Processes the Flip
When you look at the image of old lady and young lady, your primary visual cortex (V1) is doing the heavy lifting of seeing the lines. But the higher-level processing happens in the ventral stream. This is the "what" pathway of the brain.
Normally, the brain likes certainty. It hates ambiguity. When it encounters this drawing, it experiences what’s known as "perceptual rivalry." Two different interpretations are competing for dominance. Since the brain can't merge a young jawline and an old nose into one coherent "person," it picks one and suppresses the other.
Then, you get bored. Or your neurons tire out.
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Specifically, the neurons representing the first image you see eventually "fatigue." When those neurons take a break, the competing interpretation (the second woman) seizes the opportunity and pops into your consciousness. This is why you can "force" the image to switch if you stare long enough at a specific feature, like the ear/eye transition.
It's Not Just a Drawing: It's Reality
This isn't just about a 100-year-old sketch. We do this in real life all the time. Think about how you perceive a "shadow" in a dark room. Is it a coat rack or a person? Once your brain decides it’s a coat rack, the "fear" neurons shut off. But if you see it as a person, your heart rate spikes.
The image of old lady and young lady is a simplified version of how we navigate a world full of incomplete information. We are constantly "completing" the world with our expectations.
If you’re struggling to see one of them right now, try this:
- To see the young woman: Focus on the "ear." Treat it as an ear and look for a profile view of a girl looking away toward the background.
- To see the old woman: Look at the "ear" but imagine it’s an eye. Look at the "necklace" and imagine it’s a mouth.
Why This Still Matters in 2026
In an era where we are constantly bombarded with AI-generated images and deepfakes, understanding how our brain "invents" reality is vital. The image of old lady and young lady reminds us that "seeing is believing" is a lie. Seeing is interpreting. Two people can look at the exact same data set—the exact same lines—and come away with two completely different, yet "factually" supported, versions of reality.
It’s a lesson in humility.
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If we can’t even agree on whether a drawing is a grandmother or a girl, how can we expect to agree on complex political or social issues without acknowledging our own internal biases? The Flinders study proved that our demographic background (our age) literally changes our physical perception of the world.
Moving Past the Illusion
So, you’ve mastered the flip. You can see both. What now?
Understanding the image of old lady and young lady should change how you look at "first impressions." When you meet someone or see a photo, realize that your brain has already made about a dozen assumptions based on your own age, race, and experiences before you’ve even "seen" them.
Next time you find yourself in a disagreement with someone about "the facts," remember the old lady and the young lady. You might both be looking at the same thing and seeing something entirely different. Neither of you is "wrong." Your brains are just running different software on the same hardware.
Take a second to look at the image again. Try to hold the "switch" right in the middle. You can't. It’s a binary state. Use that realization to practice looking for the "other" perspective in your daily life. It’s hard work for the brain, but it’s the only way to see the full picture.
Check out other "gestalt" images like the Rubin Vase (the face/vase illusion) or the Necker Cube to further train your brain to recognize these patterns. Being aware of your own "perceptual set"—the tendency to perceive things in a certain way—is the first step toward clearer, less biased thinking. Stop trusting your eyes implicitly. Start questioning the "map" your brain is using to read the world.