Right brain v. Left brain test - spinning dancer

[Wyman]

[ QUOTE ]
In this link you get a full view of the leg shadows and a smoother dance.

Better Spinning Dancer Image

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoa!! Thanks PTB! I can see both ccw and cw now in the smoother version.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What is your artistic/logic background scorcher863 ?

[/ QUOTE ]

My backround isn't anything special, though i've always excelled in math subjects.

I am 20 yrs. old and a four semesters deep into community college. I was able to understand the dancer because of a psychology class i took.

http://psychology.about.com/od/sensa...estaltlaws.htm

The sequence is strange. In reality it's not moving at all, but the way it's drawn the dancer is moving both directions at the same time. Since it is illogical for a dancer to spin in two directions at once, your brain perceives one of the two and continues with that direction.

For me the control part comes into play when the outstretched leg has reach it's farthest left or right position. At that point i'm imagining that leg as either the dancer's right (for clockwise) or left (counter clockwise) leg.

[ QUOTE ]
I suspect those who can easily achieve the back and forth image - thus nullifying momentum - have some special mental imagery abilities/tendencies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe the special mental imagery tendency you describe is actually an illogical one. The required ability is to switch 2 aspects of the dancer.
1. the motion of the outstretched leg
2. the orientation of leg (right to left,left to right)
In real life, to think that your right leg can become your left defies logic. Since this is a silhouette and there are no distinguishing marks on either leg, here it can be done.

Pair the board - maybe your problem is that your too logical lol

scorcher863

[/ QUOTE ]

I suspect there's more to it than that. Maybe something to do with the way people process visual pieces. If I hold up my hand to block the image from the waist up, and concentrate on the shadow's extended leg always being in front, I can get the real extended leg to appear to sort of float back and forth somewhat wierdly. But as soon as I raise my hand a little to glimpse the hips I can no longer sustain the floating leg. I see the hips rotating and pulling the leg around behind.

It might help if I could stop the image and examine the pieces more closely without the confusion of movement.

PairTheBoard

[Fly]

For the first 15 min I could only see her going clockwise. The key is to focus on the foot of the leg that goes straight down. Every few spins you can see her clearly change directions.

[scorcher863]

This is from a post off the actual site.

[ QUOTE ]
When you see the image at all, you commit yourself to one view of the image or the other. The mind does not rest until it makes an intelligible image of the shadow. Clearly it takes a second for the mind to sort out and make sense of the details, but what is interesting to me is that I have yet to hear of a case where someone looked at the image and said, "Geez, I can't tell which way its turning". We don't see it as inconclusive, we see it as spinning one way or the other. Further, we cannot give up our interpretation of it turning one way or the other, without giving up all the details of our interpretation. And its hard to give up the details if we aren't clear what they are. If we see it spinning counterclockwise, we need to give up the interpretation of the bent arm as the left arm. we need to give up the interpretation of the raised leg as the left leg. we need to give up when we are imagining plain view of her face, breasts and belly, knees, toes. its a lot to give up, so its easier to cover most of it up - then you just have to let go of a few things. easier still is to look away and then come back, they you can just forget instead of giving it up. but with some practice you can look at the full figure and reverse it at will. the key is not committing yourself to what isn't there.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/comments/0,21590,22492511-5005375,00.html

i think she explains it pretty well

[scorcher863]

also at first i could only reverse every 180 degrees when i pictured her facing away. but after some practice while telling myself over and over which leg needs to be which when the outstretched leg reaches it farthest points, i was able to control her while she was facing forward.

[Prodigy54321]

counter-clockwise

holla [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
counter-clockwise

holla


[/ QUOTE ]

It seems that most of the posters here are seeing clockwise. For me this is very weird, because at all times, I see clockwise and have a very difficult time trying to force another direction. However, when I woke up this morning, for the first hour after waking, I saw counterclockwise, after that, I saw clockwise again. But strangely I took a quick nap in the afternoon and immediately upon waking, I saw counterclockwise, then it resumed shortly after to clockwise.

Did all of you see my post where the freakonomics blog is also talking about this? They are conducting their own experiment to test the veracity of this “brainedness” test. Just google their blog and scroll down about a quarter of a page.

[DonkBluffer]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting.

When I first opened the page, I saw the dancer spinning counter-clockwise. Then I read the text on the left, and when I looked back, she was spinning clockwise.

[/ QUOTE ]
I had exactly the opposite. Also, when I watched it for the first time, I couldn't imagine how it could possibly go the other way.

I managed to turn it around once, by just willing it to turn around. It first went to slow motion and then turned around.

[CORed]

Keeps reversing for me. I guess that means I have a good balance of left brain and right brain functions. Assuming of course, that the apparent direction of rotation really has any correlation to that, of which I am a bit skeptical.

[Hopeatron]

If I'm looking at the entire picture, it's tougher to get the dancer to switch direction than just looking at her feet. One trick I've managed to make it easier is to lift my finger and have it spin in the direction I want to see the dancing spin. After a few seconds I'll see the dancing change direction without taking my eyes off her. It seems to take longer for my brain to adjust from counter-clockwise to clockwise, however I suspect my default to be clockwise, since it's how I usually see her cold.