Want to find out if you tend to focus on detail or prefer to see the bigger picture? Then just look at the following picture and see if you can find the cat (click the picture to see a larger picture). People who find the cat in less than 30 seconds have a great eye for detail and aren’t at all creative, whilst those who struggle to see the furry fella tend to see the bigger picture and have a wonderful imagination (I just made that up). Thanks to Neil J.
Yep seen it, got an air rifle?
Not funny.
Rubbish heaps tend to be full of rats, Taylor,
Indeed not. How many snakes has it destroyed already?
Our cat goes out into the garden to WATCH mice. I kid you not. We had a snake eating fish in our pond, which I had to remove myself!
Not the one in the picture though!
Feral cats are a big problem here in Toronto. They are a major threat to the local wildlife we are working so hard to protect from extirpation or extinction. I like cats. But I also like spiders, mink, butterflies, snakes, coyotes, owls and all other critters, and for that reason, the introduction of fur coats made from felis catus may not be as bad an idea as it seems at first sight.
…and then, we have a problem with Mink in the UK after some were released from a farm some years ago by activists. They displace a lot of our indigenous animals. Cats will help here!
Indeed. One person’s indigenous life-form is another’s vermin. Mink are not native in the UK and they can be a problem indeed.
Which is why -I guess- I hear more and more voices going up that doubt the wisdom of destroying non-native animals. Sure, it does seem to be working wonders on the Galapagos, but can we really do that all over the planet? Are we not fighting that which should not be fought because it is inevitable? I don’t know. Seen on a longer timescale, it seems so much more of an ethical problem than a biological or conservation problem.
Maybe there is no good answer, but it’s certainly worth wasting some time on, thinking about it.
North America brought us mink and grey squirrels, we gave you the red fox and sparrows!
I think we can consider the red fox native because it’s been here for so long, but we definitely have problem with European birds that were imported here because some cultural genius thought it was a good idea to bring all the birds of Shakespeare to us. And now, we can sometimes see massive murmurations of starlings in Toronto where they are outcompeting native birds.
Let’s introduce Godzilla to Toronto.
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/media/news/2009/lessons-learned-from-devastating-effects-of-cat-eradication-on-macquarie-island
Just occurred to me to use reply after creating a new post.
Spoon cat: There is no cat.
Took me about a minute….
Found it after about. 2 minutes of hard searching
So now please help me find it.
Left side. Find the squarish white-yellow thing in the middle. Cat is to the right and down. It’s black and white, heading down. (Photoshopped, I think.)
Took me 50 seconds.
Thanks. Located it. Clue provided by M was also helpful. I think if it is difficult to locate the cat, it is not because it gets camouflaged, but it is so tiny.
Spent five minutes, still can’t find it.
I saw it almost straight away.
10 seconds. Boo Yah!
1.5 minute
Grid search did it for me
20 seconds.
Found it by zooming in and scanning piece by piece…
That’s what I did as well. If I hadn’t, I’d probably still be looking after half an hour.
There’s a cat?
Shoot me. I knew my family was lying when they said I had no imagination, but I didn’t know I had this much imagination. It took me almost 8 minutes to find the critter, and then only because I magnified the picture several times, and then used the cursor keys to move the picture over the visible part of the screen.
Of course, now. I have no way of not seeing it anymore. GRRRR…
Ive got a better challenge, find the empty can of coke!
How do you know it is empty?
He took the picture. It’s his can ^_^
About 20 seconds to find the cat.
It took me an additional 30 seconds to see the silhouette of a man carrying rubbish, another 10 to see the playing field of the World Series illuminated by 1,024,000 candles, and 10 more to realize it’s a garage heap.
A garage heap? Speed or 2-step?
Took a few minutes. I got the pic big, stood back, tried a polarizing filter, thought it was a cumulative kitty. Finally got it as I was giving up. And all my life I’ve been so good at finding p$%#y.
What about people who are told there is cat in the picture and some arbitrary rule about their imaginations?
What a load of rubbish! (I’m first aren’t I??)
Yes you are. What an imagination you have!
Random searching proved useless. Try scanning left to right in imaginary lines; then you’ll spot it. Clever.
A cat scan?
Giggle.
Well done
Cat scan worked. Wouldn’t have found it otherwise.
Seven minutes , , , , , and counting. Scanning but without success.
reminds me of one of the books of Richard P. Feynman – “Surely you are joking Mr. Feyn(wise)man!”.
Please do not compare
Feynman
Wiseman
seem to be different leagues…
even though both where joking sometimes…
I never meant to compare. Yeah, they do belong to different leagues.
Um,cat? Cant find it.
Not seen the cat so far, but a robot in the horizont. hmmm…
But why?
As an alternative to saying “You win ten points”.
Took me about 1.5 mins. Interesting though – I identified the area of the dump where the cat was within about 20 seconds – I though – there is a cat there, but I just couldn’t see it. Kept coming back to that area, and eventually I saw it.
Of course, maybe just random chance that happened, but feels like somehow the cognitive processes inside my brain are not quite talking to one another properly…
I had more or less the same experience. I had a feline, sorry feeling, that I’d seen a cat in an area, but then I had to rescan the area for quite a while to actually consiously see the cat.
First looked for a cat made out of the rubbish. No joy, read the comments and figured out it was a real cat and found it but scanning from bottom right to upper right and honestly found it within 2 seconds.
Saw the cat after about 30 seconds. I don’t agree with any of the generalizations that makes about my character, though.
I found the cat fairly quickly. An old catalytic converter, much as you’d expect to find in a pile of old junk. That is what you meant isn’t it?
Of course there’s another four legged, furry one too.
This:
“People who find the cat in less than 30 seconds have a great eye for detail and aren’t at all creative, whilst those who struggle to see the furry fella tend to see the bigger picture and have a wonderful imagination (I just made that up)”
Is crap..
Just to know how to scan for details in a big picture does not inlcude any correlation between creativity, imagination and knowledge.
Yeah he said that he made it up.
It was apparently a sort of passing attempt at humour. Gosh! Humour on t’internet, who’d a thunk it?
Just under five minutes.
Took me minutes to find it. If only it had twitched a little – my eye would have been jerked toward it…
Mrs DiscoveredJoys, trained as a proof-reader and who delights in ‘hidden object’ puzzles, spotted the cat in seconds.
There are too many things that look like cats in that picture. I give up on trying to find the actual cat. Never been good at these Where’s Waldo type things, even though I’m quite detail-oriented and (according to an IQ test I took at 15) not very good at seeing the big picture. So I don’t know how far that connection goes.
Took me about 10 seconds. Would have been quicker if I’d started searching the opposite side of the photo.
By cat do you mean a catalytic converter?
Too late, that one’s been done, I’m afraid.
Are all these commenters in on it? There is no cat.
Yes, there is. It is clearly visible, and no illusion.
Ohhhh… THAT cat!
I give up. Can’t find anything about cats (animals, writings, composite figure). Maybe is some kind of pun that I can’t understand?
No pun. The cat is there. You know, the furry creature with four legs, a head and a tail? That’s what you’re looking for. It took me almost 8 minutes to find it, but it is there.
I needed someone to help me.
Maybe I’m the most creative person on earth…
Well, if the Wise Man does not show the solution today, I will help you. The cat really is there.
took ages to find him… can’t believe he was so obvious
Took me about 20 seconds after using up the first 10 seconds thinking there was going to be a large “virtual cat” made up by a pattern in the rubbish. But no…it’s just a cat walking on the rubbish. Just scanned my eyes about until I saw the cat.
I took about twenty seconds to find it… odd, because it normally takes an eternity for me to solve those puzzles(and sometimes, I don’t even see the object I’m looking for even when it’s pointed out). I guess I’m becoming more experienced at this.
Just hoping that this doesn’t mean I’m losing my creativity
I found lots of objects which looked like Halloween masks. Do I get a point, or am I simply insane?
You could ask Sigmund. He’s in Quackademia these days.
I’m glad you made it up, because it sounds like dodgy psychology, Richard. You also forgot to factor in whether the person wants to find the cat (as in, whether they like finding cats).
” People who find the cat in less than 30 seconds have a great eye for detail and aren’t at all creative, whilst those who struggle to see the furry fella tend to see the bigger picture and have a wonderful imagination ”
Could you tell us why?
I’m not creative in the slightest but it took me less than 30 seconds to find it. Maybe it’s just because I like cats. And, is it me, or is that cat Photoshopped in there!?
Eventually found it! I thought the cat may have been hiding inside some containers or that there’s no cat and the test was whether to see if people would lie about seeing it.
How can it take people so long to see a couple of cats in a photo?
I’m not a creative person at all
If you imagine an x y grid, x being the vertical, the cat is at about 4x 2y, 0 being the bottom left corner of course.
I’d imagine there’s a much more acceptable and scientific way to describe that coordinate but I suck at maths.
And for the last time lab partners; HE SAID HE MADE UP THE BIT ABOUT THIS SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR CREATIVITY.
How big is the grid?
duhh, that would be helpful wouldn’t it? Sorry! I was thinking 10×10. Told you I suck at maths.
You are right. And it may be wise to click on the image to enlarge it. It is hardly visible on the smaller version.
Here is a good text version of the image:
skyskyskyskyskyskyskyskyskysky
rubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunkjunk
junkrubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunk
rubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunkjunk
junkrubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunk
rubcatjunkrubblejunkrubblejunkjunk
junkrubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunk
rubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunkjunk
junkrubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunk
rubblejunkrubblejunkrubblejunkjunk
I lol’d M, very creative way to describe it, although I think I may have spent more time finding your cat than the one in the picture!
skyskyrubblejunk
isn’t that a song?
Ok i spent 10 minutes looking at it now and i still cant see a cat..
But if you mean the reflection on the black scrap thing right in the middle of the screen. Than yeah i might have spotted the cat, bear, dog looking furry animal.
saw the cat.. -_-’
It took about 5 minutes for me. I was distracted by the idea that it was going to be some sort of fake or illusionary cat. Once I gave up looking, I found the real cat by doing the previously mentioned “cat scan”.
It took me about 20 seconds. For those still looking, it’s a real cat, about half way up on the left, just under and to the right of the big yellow square thing and fairly well camouflaged.
Never saw the one on the left till it was pointed out. I saw the overall big cat made up of all of the rubbish first, but maybe that is as he said – good imagination… Have to squint to see it though…
I think there’s a health and safety issue here … just sayin’
I see something that looks like it could be a cat. It’s too small for me to be sure.
This test has peaked my curiosity. Alas, my curiosity did not kill the cat.
So maybe the cat is just not there for some of you and is for others? is it *gasp* Schrodinger’s Cat?
Sorry, I figured the universe might collapse if someone didn’t bring it up.
Saw it in about 5-10 seconds. I got lucky though, as I hadn’t even looked at most of the picture by that time. I started at the bottom and went clockwise.
25 secs. Thank you very much.
after one minute could not find it. Stopped.
What cat? Is it an optical-illusion cat or a real cat? And what bit was Richard making up? I’m a details woman, I think, but I still haven’t seen the cat. Is this a trick question?
How did you get a photo of my garage?… it’s all useful!
About five minutes to find the photoshopped-in cat.
About 1 minute.
I thought it was a massive illusion and the rubbish made an image with the impression of a cat, so I was totally looking at it in the wrong way. One of the first times we’ve been asked to see an animal which is actually an animal…
I saw it in about 20 seconds.
that’s a cat ?????????
It’s Winther the Rabbit!!!
It’s a Catmeleon.
14 seconds, BUT . . .
It is just luck – it depends where you start, it depends on looking at the correct spot and a more organised, analytical mind would have taken longer with a process driven methodology.
14 seconds, but it was just luck.
Would be easier, were the cat really there.
Except that the cat IS really there.
I see something that looks like it could be a cat. It’s too small for me to be sure.
شات صوتي
Totally irritated. I have stared at this for ten minutes, and can see no cat whatsoever. My daughter glanced at it and saw it immediately.
I guess that’s why girls are such good programmers!
I AM a girl!!
I finally found it, but I had to zoom way in and look at small sections at a time.
I AM a girl!!
I finally found it, but I had to zoom way in and look at small sections at a time
I see. So I guess I should say “Girls who have no daughters” from now on! I don’t remember whether or not Ada Lovelace had a daughter. I need to verify that ^_^
Goofy thing is that last week I went through a Waldo book and found them all within less than five minutes.
Unfortunately, our brains aren’t always that consistent. Some times they are less reliable than others.
I remember that I once had to look for a bug in a programme I wrote and it took me over three weeks to find it. I consistently looked over it. I got so depressed over it, that my customer told me not to worry and simply start over. And then, hours later I discovered it. A z0 and a zO had been mixed up. That was the time a variable only had two significant characters…
I’d say that if Waldo worked, you still have quite a while to go before you won’t recognise yourself in the mirror any longer! ^_^
It took me about 15 secs. Just started top centre and started to work round clockwise.
Took me about 2 seconds. I seriously need help.
Eradicating feral cats isn’t the whole answer as can be learned from one Australian experience.
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/media/news/2009/lessons-learned-from-devastating-effects-of-cat-eradication-on-macquarie-island
While cats aren’t entirely innocent, which is why I don’t own one, I think they often unfairly get the blame for the effects of human activity.
I just realised that my post, above, is a practical example of the small picture versus the big picture! Cool!
creativity is only measur by achiving your goals
found it, but took about a minute
vet,animals,dog,cat,find…
[...]Do you tend to see the bigger picture? Take the test! « Richard Wiseman[...]…
I’m not so sure the image hasn’t been photoshopped; my neural circuits for recognising cats in tips are well established because I hunt them for the local shire, but I had to keep returning to the area my eyes were telling me the cat should be in for more than a minute before the synapses got the hippocampus feeding to the prefrontal cortex.
It needed to make a whole new paradigm for a cat walking apparently horizontally across an apparently steep tip.
The only photoshopping hints I can offer are that the cat’s tail is unconvincingly shadowed towards its tip, that the cat is not gracile enough for a tip-dweller – for example, she wouldn’t likely have the heavy undercarriage, even if pregnant – that the cat is not dirty enough around the face and paws, and that the posture doesn’t jibe with a cat’s careful negotiation of uneven ground.