Saturday, November 3, 2007

What Dominates Your Brain? Look at this image :)

Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

This is supposed to be a Right Brain vs Left Brain test. The direction of the dancer's spin depends on which side of your brain is more dominant. I could only see it clockwise, it sometimes stops, then keeps going clockwise. Allegedly, if you concentrate you can make it spin the other way.

So, I decided to make an experiment and sat a room full of family and had them look at the image at the very same time, some began to say "clock wise" while others said "counter clockwise", but mom said "it switches back and forth". Dad said "you guys are kidding." Interesting!

Click on the image if it isn't spinning at all.

Full article => Herald Sun

Apropos to nothing, Tuesday is my birthday.
Makes me want to jump and spin just like she does! Well, almost:)

So, what do you think? Is the dancer turning right or left?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDIT: After a second test where two people who were looking at the spinning lady at the same time began to argue: "it's obviously spinning right" "are you kidding me? it's going left, look at it" "I am looking at it, and it's going right!" left, right, left, right... so who's right? I turned to my friend, Google.

Even AOL News ran a poll on this image:


Turns out this image is heavily debated in the blogosphere, and the New Scientist debunked it saying it has nothing to do with right or left side of the brain, but that it is an optical illusion where different people will see different things because the dancing lady is a "two-dimensional image of only 34 frames in a constant loop that does not contain enough three-dimensional information to tell the brain which way she is spinning. So your brain helpfully fills this in, as brains do in many optical illusions. Only, in this case the brain can do it one of two ways.... what you see is purely due to your perceptual and cognitive flexibility..."

Full New Scientist Article here => Bring on the dancing girl

So, it's not a hoax but it's also not proof of what side of your brain dominates over the other. It's just a simple optical illusion :) Enjoy!

16 comments:

Claire said...

I think she dances clockwise, then at some point stops and starts turning the other direction. It could be just a game: it is entertaining but you shouldn't take it serious (just like your father said).
So what are you planning for Tuesday?

Roam2Rome said...

Ah, I thought it was a joke, too!

Except I had multiple people look at it at the very same time, and they had different answers. Dad never saw it switch directions :) but I'm still not so convinced...

Tuesday? I'm not sure yet. No work and go somewhere nice with those closest to me :)

Deb A. said...

I couldn't make her turn counter clockwise until I focused on your text underneath the image for a while and just watched her with peripheral vision. That was fun! :)

Roam2Rome said...

Hehe, it is fun! except that now I only see her spinning to the right... I think my brain froze :)

Kathy said...

I can only see clockwise, no matter how long I watch her!

Very interesting!

Anonymous said...

I tried, but all I saw was clockwise. Dang it. I wanted to see her going the other way as well. :)

Giulia said...

Clockwise for me!

Jeff Gromen said...

Jeff,
Yeah I got her to spin both ways. I notice that when she's side ways you can't tell which leg is closer and which is farther so that's when she can switch.
I had no idea that Tuesday was such an important day in both our lives.

Amber said...

It took 5 minutes for me to be able to see her turning clockwise, I was so sure she was spinning counter clockwise. This was so fun, my eldest could see it spin clockwise immediately, then both boys had a lot of fun because they could virtually change direction of the spin at will. Thanks for the fun!

Helm & Melacini Architects said...

I can only see her turning right, clockwise.

Michelle | Bleeding Espresso said...

I saw this a few weeks ago on a blog; I saw counter-clockwise immediately, then focused on her foot (where a small shadow is created) and then could see her going the other way. After that it was pretty easy for me to "switch" her back and forth.

Today when your post came up, I saw her clockwise at first, but using my trick, she switched.

It's fun, to be sure--and what I read said that the reason your brain fills in the movement one way or the other has to do with whether you're left- or right-brained. That makes sense to me...especially since I think of myself as pretty much down the middle on that too. I have strong influences from both sides of my brain...can be creative but am also rather analytical.

Must write down Tuesday in my planner!

Tui Snider @mentalmosaic said...

Sognatrice just informed me that we both posted the dancing lady today. Great minds think alike, eh? ;)

Thanks for the link to the New Scientist article. So it's all about our cognitive flexibility apparently. Fun!

Tui Snider @mentalmosaic said...

p.s. I'm sorry you disabled comments on your other post about the 'backwards apple pie.'

Your family was deeply affected by the war and you have a right to be angry - even though you seem to have made peace with it.

I'm sure that you have been a tremendous influence on your niece, and that she will be grateful one day for all that you have given her.

You are not a whiner, that much is obvious. You strike me as a thoughtful, intelligent and caring person, and I enjoy your perspective on things. Feel free to vent all you want!

Devil Mood said...

I think the New Scientist is right!

I think everyone can see it go both ways if they focus and unfocus. It's still fun though ;)

daisies said...

i love the dancing girl who i have seen before and i love making her switch back and forth :)

Karen said...

This is so fascinating! At first I saw her turning counter-clockwise, but then she switched. Then after a while, counter-clockwise again.