Which way is this dancer rotating? Clockwise or Counterclockwise?
According to this silly test about an equally silly concept, you are right brained if you see the dancer rotating clockwise and blah blah blah... etc etc. yeah whatever. Can you make the dancer rotate the other way? It really is ambiguous - I promise (even though I can't make it rotate in the other direction).
So I'm right brained according to this test which means that I'm into these things:
RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS uses feeling "big picture" oriented imagination rules symbols and images present and future philosophy & religion can "get it" (i.e. meaning) believes appreciates spatial perception knows object function fantasy based presents possibilities impetuous risk taking
but not these:
LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS uses logic detail oriented facts rule words and language present and past math and science can comprehend knowing acknowledges order/pattern perception knows object name reality based forms strategies practical safe
Newspapers should be fined for publishing this crap.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Wow, that is really annoying, because I have this extremely strong urge to flip the direction and I just can't. Whenever I look at those ambiguous images and optical illusions I enjoy flipping the image back and forth between two interpretations. It drives me crazy that I just can't get her to go counterclockwise!
Posted by: Katherine | October 12, 2007 9:35 PM
THANK you. I've seen this half a dozen times in the past couple of days and it just seemed like sheer crap to me.
Posted by: G. Williams | October 12, 2007 9:57 PM
I can do both at will. Does this mean I'm bi?
Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 12, 2007 10:00 PM
I dont know how, but I just saw the dancer go both ways. This is crazy.
Posted by: Joyce C. | October 12, 2007 10:02 PM
I wonder what it says about me if I couldn't figure out which way she was turning before I had to stop looking at her in order to keep myself from vomiting. Maybe it just confirms that I have no sense of direction.
Posted by: Jen | October 12, 2007 10:04 PM
OK, I finally got here to flip but it was really hard! I really like this illusion a lot. I think the left/right brain stuff might be crap, but the illusion is neat!
Posted by: Katherine | October 12, 2007 10:08 PM
An easy way to flip it is to look at the shadows of each individual foot. Stare at the shadow of her right (pivot) foot and she will appear to move clockwise; stare at that of the left and she will go the other way. Cute, but there's definitely no science here, folks.
Posted by: Michael Clarkson | October 12, 2007 10:23 PM
Actually, the silhouette is what makes the image ambiguous. You can rotate her in a different direction quite easily. When she's rotating clockwise, her right leg is 'up' if she's rotating anti-clockwise, her left leg is 'up'. So by changing your assumption about which direction she's facing you, you change the direction she's rotating.
You can get the same effect if you watch a wireframe-rendered cube rotate about the vertical axis. I know this because I was busy making the cube rotate in different directions in my mind and puzzling it out during a Computer Graphics class rather than paying attention to what I was supposed to be learning...
Posted by: Wong | October 12, 2007 10:39 PM
I can change the direction of rotation by closing my eyes, imagining the figure rotating in the other direction, and then opening my eyes again. (I also do well on the "rotate the shape in your head" tests, so I may have a propensity for it.) I do tend to see the dancer rotating clockwise the first time, and I'm normally a fairly left-brained individual...
Posted by: Max Kaehn | October 12, 2007 11:54 PM
What does it mean if you just kept staring at the sillhouette of her boobs?
Posted by: Mr. Gunn | October 12, 2007 11:54 PM
Nice ambiguous figure.
If it really were a matter of hemisphere differences, the figure should shift directions depending on whether you look to the right or the left of it. That doesn't seem to work.
Posted by: Johan | October 13, 2007 4:07 AM
I've come across this a couple of times now, and I consistently see her rotating clockwise, although with some effort with the foot trick I can see it rotating counter-clockwise.
I wonder if there's a correlation between the dominant direction of motion and the direction of one's written language. Might speakers of Semitic languages be more likely to see right-to-left movement?
Posted by: Darik Gamble | October 13, 2007 4:50 AM
I can make it reverse direction by scrolling from the top down, changing my focus, and then scrolling from the bottom up. Perhaps this will work for you.
Posted by: Jan | October 13, 2007 7:50 AM
Very interesting... I defaulted to clockwise, and even using Michael's method, I kept flipping back to that when the high foot's shadow went out of the frame. Jan's method got me a much more stable flip.
Posted by: David Harmon | October 13, 2007 9:12 AM
I default to CCW which means "left-brained", but I'm left handed which means "right-brained" and I'm a cognitive psychology grad student so I'm pretty sure it's all crap, but I like the illusion.
I can get the dancer to rotate CW by clicking the scroll wheel on my mouse (which has a side effect of freezing web animation) and then clicking again to unfreeze it. It might just be my creaky computer though.
When she's moving CW her shadow seems wrong to me though, and right now I see the dancer moving CW, but the pivot foot is independently rotating CCW, matching the shadow. Odd indeed.
Posted by: breton | October 13, 2007 12:32 PM
For additional fun, put a hand mirror up next to the screen so that you can see two mirror images, and see if you can get them to go opposite ways or the same way - four different possibilities! I found it harder to make the two images go opposite directions but every once in a while it seems to happen spontaneously.
Posted by: DCBob | October 13, 2007 7:18 PM
Weird, sometimes I see her turning clokwise, and tehn suddenly she starts turning CCW ( and I don't have to do anything to flip it), so mainly it just makes me vomit.
Anyway, I once was told my laterality was not well defined.
Posted by: Virginia | October 16, 2007 8:28 AM
Hey, can you put up a new post with two copies of the animation, side by side? I bet it'd be possible to get a 3D view if you cross your eyes a little.
Posted by: Jon H | October 16, 2007 10:24 AM
I find that if I'm looking down at my monitor and blink the woman spins clockwise, and if I'm looking up and blink she spins anti-clockwise, so maybe this is all just based on perspective (I notice that the foot is higher up for one side of the rotation)
Posted by: David | October 16, 2007 2:15 PM
I see her going in both directions. When I look away and back, she turns the other way. What does that say about me now?
Posted by: makita | October 17, 2007 8:14 AM
"Newspapers should be fined for publishing this crap."
Does this mean, Steve, that you can't make it change directions?
Posted by: Chuck McKay | October 17, 2007 5:34 PM
I find that focusing on the legs makes it change directions for me. Also that when she's going clockwise the right leg is the one raised higher, then when she changes direction the raised leg is her left.
Posted by: Paula | October 18, 2007 12:07 PM
For an added challenge, see if you can get her to change direction every rotation. Can you get her to oscillate like a pendulum?
Posted by: Chris | October 18, 2007 2:15 PM
For me, she started out appearing to rotate clockwise (looking from above her, I assume).
Much like Jan described, if I start at the head and slowly bring my focus downward: neck, shoulder-level (but centered about the rotation axis), upper-back, mid-back -- by the time I get to the waist, she's rotating counter-clockwise.
As soon as I get to the foot that bobs up and down (vs. in rotation), she goes back to clockwise.
Very cool to play with the shift here!
Posted by: Richard Harlos | October 18, 2007 10:44 PM
I wouldn't think that you publish an animated gif in a newspaper...
Posted by: Daryl McCullough | October 19, 2007 1:56 PM