Which of the figures shown in the image is different from the others? At first glance, the question seems easy and obvious: it is the green figure that is clearly different from the others. But… the circle is also the only one to have a different shape, and indeed the small square too! In short, by observing a few more moments, we realize that all the figures are different from each other! And so, what is the solution?
A quiz like this is said in English odd one outliterally “the strange one”, which in Italian we could translate as “fish out of water”. The game consists in finding which of the figures has a characteristic that makes it different from the others. Often such games are very simple and require only “visual” attentionsuch as finding the only 6 in a sheet full of 9s.
In this case, however, further reasoning needs to be done. In fact, the five figures shown all have a different characteristic: the shape (square or circle), the edge (present or not), the color (red or green) and the size change.
So where is the solution if all the figures are different from each other? It’s right in the look for the least different. But let’s try to better understand what it means and let’s do it by analyzing the figures starting from the right. The first figure we encounter is certainly the only one to be small, the second figure going towards the left is instead the only one to be green, while the third is the only one to change shape being circular, the fourth is the only one to not have the edge.
And the fifth, or rather the first from the left? What is its uniqueness? The answer is that he doesn’t have one, and that is precisely his lack of uniqueness that makes it unique and different from the others!
It seems like a paradox, doesn’t it? Well, actually this reasoning is more logical than we might imagine. The initial question can certainly be misleading, because we instinctively find ourselves looking for obvious differences, therefore the only green one, or the smallest, and so on. If instead let’s shift the focuswe find the solution. This type of reasoning is often called lateral thinking.
In this case, uniqueness was not sought, but rather the lack of uniqueness. What is special among these figures is the most ordinary one, which at first did not arouse our attention.
