Visual Thinking Research

(left image: my dad's markings, right image: my markings)

The first puzzle I chose to solve with my dad is The Cat. The goal of the puzzle is to count all the different triangles within the image of the cat. We went about the puzzle in similar ways. First we counted the obvious large triangles because they were the first that caught our eyes. Then we had to find all the smaller triangles. With our eyes and pencils, we dissected the triangles to find triangles within them (e.g. the two triangles within the cat's triangle eyes). We spent most of our time at the cat's "tail", where many small triangles were hidden. Sometimes we had to look at some areas twice because some areas seemed like rectangles when they were really quadrilaterals. The biggest challenge of this puzzle was the fact that the image uses Gestalt's grouping principles of proximity and similarity. It was a little difficult to break apart the groups because our minds would constantly keep grouping them back together. In the end, we found 20 triangles total and were correct!




(left image: my markings, right image: my dad's markings)

The New Star Puzzle was the next puzzle we chose. The objective is to create another five-point star that looks exactly like those on the page but it is larger than the others and does not touch any of them. My dad and I approached this in different ways. I dove right into the puzzle, lightly drawing all the lines of a star I could. When I hit another star, I would re-orient the page and try to create another one. On the other hand, my dad used more mathematical, methodical methods. First he measured the lengths of the stars with a ruler, making sure they were equilateral. Then he drew all the straight lines in between stars that he could. He was trying to find that center pentagon from which to draw the new star from. In the end, only I could come up with a star. Even though it was wrong, I now understand how powerful Gestalt's principles of perception are to our visual understanding of the world. It was difficult to find a hidden star because the cluster of stars on the page were grouped together so strongly on the basis of their similarity and proximity.