Am I the only one who didn’t fall for it, and actually said “Wait, they didn’t say it was THE Frodo, so really it’s probably just some dude named Frodo and he probably wears a size 32⁄30.”? I think it’s actually a result of what we might call the “Ackbar effect” (it’s a trap!); when presented with something that you expect to be an optical illusion, lateral-thinking puzzle, evidence of bias, etc. you immediately question your intuitive response or even force yourself into answering differently from your intuition. “I know those lines don’t look parallel… but it’s an optical illusion, so they must be.” (You could then fool such people by giving them “illusions” that aren’t; e.g. the lines don’t look parallel because they really aren’t parallel.)
Am I the only one who didn’t fall for it, and actually said “Wait, they didn’t say it was THE Frodo, so really it’s probably just some dude named Frodo and he probably wears a size 32⁄30.”? I think it’s actually a result of what we might call the “Ackbar effect” (it’s a trap!); when presented with something that you expect to be an optical illusion, lateral-thinking puzzle, evidence of bias, etc. you immediately question your intuitive response or even force yourself into answering differently from your intuition. “I know those lines don’t look parallel… but it’s an optical illusion, so they must be.” (You could then fool such people by giving them “illusions” that aren’t; e.g. the lines don’t look parallel because they really aren’t parallel.)
There are such illusions that aren’t: link (via Ironic Sans). These illusions appeared in the April 1971 issue of New Scientist magazine.
Of course they’d be in the APRIL issue.