Posted to the Omni Brain Facebook group (thanks David!):
This is bizarre! How smart is your right foot? Just try this. It is from an [unidentified] orthopedic surgeon [in an email meme].This will boggle your mind and you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your foot, but you can't. It's preprogrammed in your brain! [ZOMG!]
1. WITHOUT anyone watching you (they will think you are GOOFY) and while sitting where you are at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
2. Now, while doing that, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.Your foot will change direction.
I told you so!!! And there's nothing you can do about it!
Can anyone explain the mechanism behind this?
Comments
I'm not sure I can give a quick answer, but I'm nearly certain that Rich Ivry (Berkeley) has done research on this and in his papers there would be a thorough answer. At the very least he has research on bimanual coordination that's very similar to this.
And, by the way, "there's nothing you can do about it!" isn't accurate because I got my foot to not change direction on the first try, though I've heard of this phenomenon before. I can prove it to you in 2 weeks! (Though if I've had a drink I'm not sure.)
Posted by: Katherine Moore | August 1, 2007 8:54 AM
So, I thought I had it too, and in fact realized that my foot was changing direction so smoothly and immediately I hadn't noticed.
ou don't even have to actually make the hand motion-- somehow, the foot changes merely with the *intent* to move your hand counterclockwise.
Posted by: sally | August 1, 2007 10:36 AM
Thanks for the lead, Katherine. There's a list of bimanual coordination publications on Ivry's lab web site, looks interesting.
Posted by: Sandra | August 1, 2007 1:16 PM
Actually, my foot didn't change direction.
Posted by: Julianna | August 1, 2007 5:19 PM
Huh, didn't work for me. I rotated both at the ankle and the knee. Could it be because I'm bilingual?
Posted by: Mark | August 1, 2007 10:23 PM
anyone who says it doesn't happen to them is just plain lying.
Posted by: Micolo | August 2, 2007 4:29 PM
..or drawing the 6 a different way...
Most people start at the top so the hand turns anti clockwise.
If they start in the middle and, creating the bottom part first the hand turns the same direction as the foot, and nothing happens.
Posted by: Sjappie | August 3, 2007 4:06 AM
Didn't happen to me either. You guys are making this shit up.
Posted by: creepy | August 3, 2007 4:18 AM
Hmm... It's strange, even knowing what to expect the first time, and still having my foot stop... creepy. It definitely matters which way you draw the 6... if you use a clockwise movement it's no problem at all. The effect seems less pronounced if I try the mirror movements on my left (non-dominate) side as well, so southpaws may get some odd results. I eventually found a way to do it with right hand/foot and counter-circular movements, just as described though. The key for me was to not think of them as separate movements, but as synchronized, symmetric (mirrored) movement. Normally I swing my foot in big circles, and the "6" is made of much smaller (and therefore quicker) movements. I have to match the speed of them both to let my brain coordinate the two and keep them synced. That is, foot and hand both at the top at the same moment, then outside (right for foot, left for hand) at the same time, then bottom, etc. I can do a couple of complete movements in a row, but if I lose that sync, my brain snaps the foot backwards to follow the hand pretty quickly.
Posted by: Xepher | August 5, 2007 8:56 PM
I can keep drawing 6's in the air and rotating my right foot with no problem at all.
But not with left hand/foot.
I'm left-handed.
Posted by: Alexei Lebedev | August 7, 2007 1:33 AM