What do you see?

[Lyrima]

and can you explain it?


http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22492511-5005375,00.html

[Noa]

wow.  my daughter and I both saw it clockwise.  It wasn't until studying the shadow that I could make her "go" the other direction.

very cool illusion.

[Jasyn]

Erm.  I'm confused.  And dizzy.

At first, she was leaving me-- "anti-clockwise"--but only if I concentrated on her funky misshapen head and/or broken neck.  I focused in on the head first because it was large and dislocated.  That and I also tend to scan from top to bottom, like reading.  (Such a way with words.  Hard to imagine why she would be running from me, right?)

If I focus in on the feet, the image very quickly turns into the sillhouette of one of those creepy-wierd Edward Munchian screaming zombies lunging at me from clockwise-land.

Is there a third category?  Like Left, Right and Disturbed?  Or did I inadvertantly turn take a Rorshach test instead?

[Lyrima]

Now splain it Jasyn *nod*

[Jasyn]

Now splain it Jasyn *nod*

Erm... I ate some bad meat?

[Lyrima]

/sigh

And I thought that was Alwynn.

[Noa]

And I thought that was Alwynn.

I'm confused.  The spinning dancer has a bit larger rack than Alwynn has.  I think.

Oh!  I understand ...

Maybe Jasyn ate Alwynn's meat.

Which also might explain why the chick was running away from Jasyn.

[Namae Nai]

What works for me is to visualize her toes tracing out an oval that is actually a circle viewed from an angle. Then I can make her switch directions just by mentally deciding whether the top or the bottom of the circle is facing my direction. That work for anyone else?  

Good illusion!  

[Lyrima]

but do you think it really indicates which brain you use the most?

[Namae Nai]

It probably has a tendency to be correct for a majority of people, but I would venture that it's not nearly close to 100% accurate. It's an oversimplification.

It's working off the principle that your mind makes things 3D that aren't: Everything you see on a monitor or TV screen is flat and has no depth dimension to rotate in. Once you've fooled your mind into thinking that an 2D object has depth, then it can be tricked into seeing a rotation that isn't happening. This particular illusion takes it a step further and removes any context that would tell you which way it's rotating so you can see it going either way, as the rotation itself is only happening in your brain.

It's a little like how literate people draw meaning, words, and sentences out of what is a collection of curves and lines, i.e. the letters you are reading in my post right now. The message I'm communicating to you is put together by your brain which has learned that certain shapes represent certain sounds that become words that when strung together is like I'm talking to you in person right now. It's so automatic for you that you've almost entirely forgotten that they are just shapes. Just like it's hard for people to change the girls rotation, it's hard for you to see letters as not representing something else. You're fighting against a mental reflex that you've spent years developing.

To say that seeing it one way indicates that you are right/left brain requires a bit more knowledge about how your individual brain works, though. Our brains aren't so simple that you can say that one person is left brain, and another is right brain. There have been some really cool studies done with people that have been brain damaged right down the center of the brain and their two sides of their brain can no longer speak directly with each other. I'll see if I can't dig up some more.

[Jasyn]

I'm confused.  The spinning dancer has a bit larger rack than Alwynn has.  I think.

Oh!  I understand ...

Maybe Jasyn ate Alwynn's meat.

Which also might explain why the chick was running away from Jasyn.

On the other hand, if the dancer *is* Alwynn, it's no wonder he's running... 


So... if you're able to make the dancer spin in either direction, does that mean that the right and left hemispheres of your brain communicate with each other relatively well?  And which way does she spin if you only have one eye and bad depth perception?  And which way did she spin for you, Lyr?  You didn't tell us!   

[Namae Nai]

I wouldn't call it a test as much as I think it's brain exercise. I think that's why people who try to see it both ways usually tells me it hurts a little at first. You're flexing mental muscle to make it look like you want it to. 

[Lyrima]

And which way did she spin for you, Lyr?  You didn't tell us!   

She spins clockwise for me at first, every time, but she shifts back and forth pretty regularly.

My brother got into it so much he sent me to THIS site to see if it confirmed my right brainedness...and it did for me, but barely:

http://www.intelliscript.net/test_area/questionnaire/questionnaire.cgi?q=right_brain_left_brain_2

Left Brain Dominance: (7)
Right Brain Dominance: (9)

What was fun is that I had to ask Guthric a question about me that I didn't know the answer to.  And he did. Immediately.  I loooove it when that happens.  I've never known anyone who paid more attention and always knows....me.   

[Dicey Reilly]

Well the test said:

Left Brain Dominance:    6(6)
Right Brain Dominance:    7(7)

And that result doesn't surprise me, because I am left handed and studies have shown that left handed people, by the mere fact of living in a right oriented world end up having a larger Corpus callosum (the bridge between the right and left hemisphere of the brain).  So my natural dominate side of the brain has been tempered a bit by my environment.

I also know why it is that I get dizzy trying to switch the figure. My left eye is extremely dominate when it comes to perceptions to the point of excluding data that contradicts what it sees.  (When using a microscope I do not see the arrow that is put in the right ocular unless I close my left eye.)  Trying to force my brain to switch that gives me a headache.

[Alwynn]

I'm not that dancer! For one thing, the first thing *I* noticed was that she wasn't wearing a shirt. Then I noticed she was going Clockwise. And always is. I *cannot* get her to go counter-clockwise.

Just like a woman. They NEVER listen to me.

Once it got close to going counter-clockwise but every time her legs crossed paths with what I see as her back to me the animation jumped to another position.


New Question: Is dropping or jumping?

[Jasyn]

Interesting quiz.  I'm either well-balanced or my brain is broken.  I'm also right-handed, and I'm right eye dominant with corrective vision and left eye dominant without.  Go figure. 

Left Brain Dominance:  (11)
Right Brain Dominance:  (11)

New Question: Is dropping or jumping?

Yes, it is. 

[Sagacity]

Left Brain Dominance:    9
Right Brain Dominance:    8

Interesting!

The first couple of times I looked at the dancer I saw her going anticlockwise, but when I went and looked just now I saw her going clockwise.  The quiz shows I'm pretty close in scores, so I guess I can go either way!   

[Lyrima]

I"m a lefty too...so I guess that explains why she circles both ways for me--environment vs. genetics.

I think the right brained description of me matches fairly well. Not perfectly, of course, but close enough.

[Jezerai]

When I first looked at the dancer she was spinning clockwise, then she started going counter clockwise and I can't for the life of me make her go back.

I took the questionnaire and got:

Left Brain Dominance:  (8)
Right Brain Dominance:  (9)

[Noa]

I saw her going anticlockwise

that's because you are still on australian time, didibud.  all the dancers down there go the same direction as your toilets.