both. just look for it.

I saw it immediately as clockwise. And as long as I STARED at it, I couldn't get it to change. But as soon as I looked away, and let my peripheral vision take over, I immediately saw it change to counter-clockwise. What does that say?

I saw it as immediately anti-clockwise, but she changed directions after about 20 seconds.

I also noticed she has nipples, which...seriously, was that necessary?

it keeps switching directions when i look at it.

It was counter clockwise at first. I tried to switch and could not. I looked away and it switched in my peripheral vision. Then it stayed clockwise and I could not change it back, even by looking away.

Weird.

I also noticed she has nipples, which...seriously, was that necessary?

Yes, to make us look harder at it.

I see clockwise most of the time but every so often it does go counter.

I see she goes both ways.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's ambiguous which direction is clockwise - depends on if its viewed from the top or the bottom. I'm guessing most view it from the top.

I showed it to a room of about 20 beer-drinking Earth scientists (grad students and PhDs) and the great majority got the right brain view, which seem opposite of what it claims. There were a few people who saw it as anticlockwise.

Most but not all could reverse it, but only a few could do it easily.

I just see nipples.

(I see maurinsky also noticed.)

I also can't help but notice the damn pop when the cycle restarts. Hazard of my profession (animator)

nevermind. now i see her going clockwise, and i can't force myself to see her going counter-clockwise.

Look at her feet and it'll switch. Assuming it's not a computer trick.

Yeah, I'm assuming they mean clockwise and counterclockwise as viewed from the top.

Anyway, Marian saw it counterclockwise at first but then it switched moments later to clockwise. I'm completely hardwired to clockwise, though. Staring doesn't change it, looking away and coming back doesn't change it, closing one eye doesn't change it, and using peripheral vision from either side doesn't change it. My brain is obviously showing me who's boss around here.

Of course, this thing is from an Australian news site. Maybe clocks go backward below the equator?

I saw it as counter-clockwise first (before getting it to switch by looking away) and I'm pretty sure I'm right-brained. Maybe it's like that thing about water spiraling down the drain the opposite way in the southern hemisphere.

With a body like that, it would have been far more entertaining to have her also do jumping jacks.

First she was clockwise. Then I read the copy and she started going counter. Then I concentrated on making her go clockwise but she wouldn't until I looked away for a sec and then direction changed.

The spooky naked lady gave me a headache.

I saw her twirling counterclockwise and managed to switch to clockwise with great effort by staring only at her head.

I would generally consider myself analytic, like logic and abstract math and tend to live in the past. So checks out.

Second the peripheral thing. I can make it switch back and forth by focusing on something else.

Once or twice I got her to swivel back and forth.

Why does our brain have to pick and interpretation?

Stare at the foot shadow to make it switch directions. Force it to go whichever way you think it isn't going. Worked for Kos, works for me.

Oh! Did it again. Started clockwise then I shut my eyes and pictured her moving counterclockwise. It worked! Same for going back to clockwise.

Weird! If you look at the shadow of her feet she never makes a circle but goes left, then right, then left, then right. Same thing if you focus on the elbow of the woman in the upper right corner of the page.

Left brain v. right brain? The only thing this test would do for Al and harry (tbroz?) is confirm that they're both harebrained.

This is fun! You can make her do the twist. Sort of.

Now I'm going to concentrate on getting her to stand still.

Me? No, I don't have anything better to do right now...

Kevin: "Of course, this thing is from an Australian news site. Maybe clocks go backward below the equator?"

They just moved forward an hour in Tasmania, which switched to Daylight Savings Time for its summer season.

Counterclockwise, purely counterclockwise no matter how often I looked or whether I looked at the top, bottom or middle.

A friend emailed this to me a couple of days ago, and in my household, we have been preoccupied with this dancer like Mr. Pitt looking at the 3-D art.

She mostly spins clockwise for me (and everyone else in the house) but with concentration, we can make her go the other way.

I only see clockwise no matter where I stare.

At first the dancer did not rotated just vascillated, left to right and right to left, then she moved clockwise, then using peripheral she would move counter-clockwise.

The I recall that the center of our vision is basically blank. (O) and is filled in by our brains, after all the pupil is just that. A hole.

Is it a trick? Naw, just the way we are wired.

Heres something to try, see if you can do it. Close your eyes and think about nothing [best done laying down] a feat in itself,thinking of nothing, but if you can, you will see that darkness behind your eyelids become just as when they are open and accepting surrounding light. You may find yourself in someplace you know, or dont know, its like dreaming while awake. You 'see' well lit rooms, and people, daylight even, as if your eyes are open, but they, of course aren't.

This would be a great scam for Human Potential speakers along the lines of the "walking on burning coals" trick.
"By FOCUSING the POWER of your MIND YOU can change the direction of the dancer on this computer screen! Achieve your FULL POTENTIAL by attending my MIND POWER seminar!"
I got it to spin in both directions and my mind thought of a way to swindle people. What does that say about me?

In firefox you can press "ESC" and stop her and just check out her nipples.

Problem solved.

Weird. At first it was only clockwise, then I covered it up, looked again and it was counter-clockwise. It seemed I could control it by repeatedly covering up and then returning to look. Then for a while no matter what I did it was always clockwise. Finally I seemed to be able to control it at will by reading something before returning to look again.

As for my work, I'm a communications/public relations/marketing executive for a multi-billion-dollar company. And for the record, I've taken quite a few tests on the right brain/left brain and have consistently scored 50/50.

I'd like to see a version that abstracts some of the anatomical details. I think some of the fine details of the ankles, face, etc, give clues that make it much more obviously clockwise.

For me she went clockwise, but when I looked through only my right eye she went counterclockwise after a while. This might give some support to the notion that it's a right brain vs left brain issue, since the right eye goes to the left side of the brain. However this suggests to me that it'd be more likely a case of which eye is dominant than a case of basic personality traits.

Though I'd thought my right eye was dominant.

Well, the way eyes are lensed, she would actually be upside down at the rear of our eyeball and would then appear to reverse direction.
Anyway, not trick, I think, just nipply treats!!
BTW, Maurinsky, if it was a mans nipple I'd have been grossed out! =P

Look at her feet and it'll switch. Assuming it's not a computer trick.
Posted by: Anderson on October 13, 2007

Yeh I noticed the feet faced each other at one point during the animation. And I wonder if the shadow is necessary for this optical illusion to work.

At first, clockwise. Then after I succeeded at switching to counterclockwise, I couldn't switch back for a long time. Hiding the window and coming back to it didn't help, either, but I finally discovered I could get her to switch quickly and reliably by covering up everything above her knees and imagining her feet as kicking instead of spinning.

Here's another version of this brain teaser:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OlAcbetwaaE

Remember:

Clockwise - Left Brained
AntiClockwise - Right Brained

Still can't figure it out - Little Brained

I saw it hardwired as clockwise, but covering up the dancer herself with my hand and focusing only on the foot shadow for a bit (like Chris O. recommended, thanks!) changes my perspective to counterclockwise. Still, I naturally see it as clockwise, and it even switches back to that after a bit of watching it counterclockwise. My brain just reorients itself to see it as clockwise after a little bit. When watching it clockwise, it stays clockwise unless I stare at the foot shadow.

Staring doesn't change it, looking away and coming back doesn't change it, closing one eye doesn't change it, and using peripheral vision from either side doesn't change it.

Started out going CCW when the animation was loading, and the pop, clockwise. Stuck for a bit that way, and the I learned the trick - cover everything with your hand except the shadows of her feet. And then slowly uncover her bottom to top. Now she's CCW. (The shadows are fscked up somehow, I can't explain it.)

Then I blinked real hard and she was CW.

max
['I think only the very left-brained get her CCW.']

Counter clockwise on first glance... then clockwise.

Tried again using peripheral vision.
Sure enough, initallhy counterclockwise... then clockwise when viewed 'directly'.

Interesting.

Hint for Kevin and others who can't make her change: you're not just reversing her rotation direction, you're also changing her from left to right. Thus, if you're seeing go clockwise, you'll need to start thinking of her left leg as the one that's forward.

Wow, after watching the dancer for some long, I glanced dwon and George Clooney looked like (R) Congressman Ray LaHood!

As pointed out above, the feet are the key to getting her to switch. Just scroll down enoughj so that only her feet show. Voila. She switches directions.

I haven't managed to get the dancer to switch. My working theory is that I'm trapped in the knowledge that a human dancer with her raised leg in that position is turning right.

Of course, if I could get the image to reverse, her leg might be in another position that's only consistent with turning left.

Try bringing up two copies of it (open image in new window) side by side. If I do that and they're synchronized so the angled legs are pointing inward or outward at roughly the same time, it looks like the left is turning anti-clockwise and the right clockwise at the same time, or vice versa.

But if the angled legs in the two images are both pointing right or both pointing left at roughly the same time, they are both spinning the same direction (either direction).

The image by itself:
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5675247,00.gif

ITS A HOAX!!!

Watch it carefully for a while. It spends about 80% of the time spinning clockwise and then spins counterclockwise for 20% of the time. (As viewed from above).

Download the animated GIF and take it apart in a graphics editor if you don't believe me.

Just scroll down enoughj so that only her feet show. Voila. She switches directions.

Indeed, the 'shadow' of the feet move left to right, where as the 'real' feet, when the shadow feet drop from view, move right to left.

Ya Know:
One thing that happens to me while staying still and thinking of nothing is that I lose track of whether my hand lies palm up or palm down.

Ya Know:
One thing that happens to me while staying still and thinking of nothing is that I lose track of whether my hand lies palm up or palm down.
Posted by: Goran

I have not experienced that,or even contemplated it, but it is indeed interesting. =)

Actually ... its more insidious than that. Its a unidirectional animated GIF that uses javascript to randomly reverse the direction.

BUT STILL A HOAX!!!

(note that the right brain / left brain descriptions are also completely reversed)

I saw it hardwired as clockwise, but covering up the dancer herself with my hand and focusing only on the foot shadow for a bit (like Chris O. recommended, thanks!) changes my perspective to counterclockwise.

That worked for me as well, except I could only get the shadow to go counterclockwise, not the whole figure.

ITS NOT A HOAX!!!

Boy is my face red. To prove it to yourself, download the image to your computer. Then make a quick and dirty web page with multiple versions of the gif file.

I did it and before long I was getting so good at switching I can keep her from ever turning her back to me. Only wish I was as good at that with real women. Especially ones with her figure!

I disabled the javascript function Zac, it did not change the dancer image, [refreshing the page brings about different advertisements] looked thru the webpages Javascript source code, and did find a math.round math.random attribute, but that seems to deal with ad rotation and not image rotation.

both ways.

don't stare. look away for a few second and look back and she's going in the opposite direction. back and forth. clockwise and then counter-clockwise.

Posted by: Zac on October 13, 2007 at 10:13 PM

No problem Zach =) I have a feeling that if we saw a true dancer, not a shadow dancer [with machine gun jubblies baby yeh!], it would be easier to define what direction she truly was rotating.

The trick is to have one copy of the image running on top of another (but in sync). Just as her legs are about to scissor together, move your eyes from one copy to the other. She will be spinning towards you every time.

This specific image has certain properties that make this possible, ie certain "frames" where her orientation is ambiguous, but its still a very cool exercise in subverting reality.

First saw her going counterclockwise, which makes sense since I'm very left-brained (I'm an editor), but I had no problem making her switch. With a little practice, I could make her leg move back and forth in a semicircle in front of her.

I first saw this several weeks ago linked from another site, and at that time I could only see it go counterclockwise. But since people here mentioned peripheral vision, I tried that, while simultaneously imagining what it would look like going clockwise, and voila suddenly she was rotating clockwise, and stayed that way when I looked directly. But then I accidentally moved the cursor of the mouse over the picture and instantly she was reversed again! Strange.

When I tilt/rotate the laptop, the spin direction changes. Very weird.

Saw it as clockwise, which is completely at odds with my background (BA in Physics, MIT Ph.D in Engineering). Couldn't get it to switch directions until I concentrated on the area near the feet and their shadow; after a few seconds, I could get it to switch to counter-clockwise and stay moving in that direction.

the nipples are probably a HOAX!! too

it keeps switching every 30 seconds or so

.gniht gnikcuf tsediputs eht s'tahT

She switches back and forth for me, and I have a PhD in biochemistry. Biology: Right brain. Chemistry: Left brain. Yeah, that's it. And seriously, people: It's Saturday night. We need to get a life.

For even more fun if you can possibly stand it, put a hand mirror up by the screen so you can see both the dancer and her mirror image. You may see the images to turn the same way out of phase or opposite ways in phase - and in either direction.

I MUST BE A GENIUS!

Staring at it endlessly I see her going endlessly counter-clockwise.

TOH

Anti-clockwise for several minutes. Tried concentration to revese. No go. Experimented with some left-hand manipulations thinking it might energize the right brain, and, poof, switched to cockwise. Maybe just a coincidence with a fake-up changing animation. Who knows?

Thoughts of a backlit Angelina Jolie might also do something.

All I see are a bunch of still images in a loop. It's not spinning at all. The light color sort of looks like the east and west shorelines of some continents perhaps changing through time in response to plate tectonics.

It's seriously supposed to look like a spinning nipple with legs?

She goes clockwise for me, but I don't think that matches the list of attributes. When I look at it in mirror --just the mirror image by itself -- I get still clockwise; but curiously I can make the mirror image reverse far more easily than I can the direct image. When I use the mirror to make two simultaneous images, they go in opposite directions, like one dancer in a mirror; I can't get them to move in unison as to direction.

Got it. Look away so the figure is rotating only in your extreme peripheral vision. Then blink your eyes, varying the blink rate until they strobe your brain into seeing the figure spinning the direction you desire.

I can see her turning in both directions. She swings right. Then she swings left.

I once took a test in a class to find out if I was right-brain or left-brain dominant. My score was exactly in the middle. We were told that people in the middle, who can look at things from two points of view like that are rare, which explained a lot to me about my life. It can be a lonely place.

It's not a trick. I can reverse the "spin" of the image pretty much at will. It's not that hard.

I hope this isn't a trick site. She's on her right leg spinning counter-clockwise -- left leg spinning clockwise.

I saw clockwise spinning. Now I'll go back and lookie over everything.

I think that the shadows of the feet can only be explained as shadows of an object turning counter-clockwise. But not the dancer who I want to see turning clockwise. Weird, yes, but the whole thing is suspect as the article makes no attempt to explain why we see it one way or another. Do we have built in left/right spin?

Who cares which way she spins? She is hot. I think this is an example that we all have to work on our priorities.

If I focus on the shadow of the foot at the bottom exclusively I can get it to switch to CCW. And weirdly enough I can't get it to switch back to CW unless I imagine the shadow of the foot at the bottom going CCW, then the entire figures will switch back again. Neat.

The comment on the site is correct: focus on the feet and you can (with some practice and effort) begin to control which direction she's moving.

Let me rephrase that "...but the whole thing is suspect as the article makes no attempt to explain HOW we see it one way or another..."

For me, the figure turns CCW when I look away and not try to figure out which way it goes, and see it through peripheral vision. If I look straight at it and try to make it go one way or the other, it always goes CW. So if I try to concentrate, I get right brained? That seems weird.

I can see the dancer going either clockwise or counterclockwise. Clockwise is more natural, for she is turning clockwise to keep her balance. If you picture her going counterclockwise, she is turning very awkwardly and stiffly.

Next look at her feet. Picturing her going clockwise her foot is hitting the floor very softly and flatly. If you picture her turning counterclockwise, the foot is moving jerkily--pointing slightly downward when turning toward the back. Then you see the ankle flexing with the toe pointing up for a bit as it turns toward the front.

I'm pretty sure the side-of-the-brain aspect of this thing is crap, judging by my own experience and by more than half of the posts on this thread. Still ridiculously mind-bending, though. It makes me want to scream after a while. Oh yeah, and she's hot. But I actually can't see the nipples.

Ran across this a day or two ago. Saw it as clockwise for what seemed like forever and then suddenly managed to see it counterclockwise.

Likewise with Kevin, if I'm right-brained it will be news to everybody who has ever known me in the history of my life, and should seek other employment.

What I do wonder is what it means, if any damn thing at all.

I'm guessing nothing. But that's my left brain talking, of course.

I can't believe that the direction has anything to do with left-versus-right brains. I see her going in both directions. But Kevin, if you can't see the two ways of looking at it, here's a trick that can help:

If you mouse over the image and do a click-drag (at least that works on my Windows-based computer), you can make the motion stop until you let go of the mouse button. While it is stopped, see if you can see that there are two interpretations of the picture: (1) She is standing on her left leg, and her right leg is lifted, or (2) She is standing on her right leg, and her left leg is lifted.

If you see her as standing on her right leg, then she is twirling counter-clockwise. If you see her as standing on her left leg, then she is twirling clockwise. To help to see both interpretations, here is a drawing with lines drawn to suggest she is standing on her left foot, and here she is seen as standing on her right foot.

For what it's worth, in my family I (male) saw it only clockwise for a long, long time; the two females switched back and forth quickly.

She mostly spins clockwise for me (and everyone else in the house) but with concentration, we can make her go the other way.

I dated a woman like that in college....

Sorry to keep posting . . .

Here's what works every time for me. Concentrate on the shadow of the lifted leg which moves along the very bottom of the screen. It moves from right to left, and disappears in the middle of the screen. Now, to get her spinning clockwise, imagine that this particular shadow is being cast as her lifted leg is swinging OUT TOWARD you. To see her spinning counter-clockwise, imagine the shadow as being cast by her lifted left leg as it swings BACK AWAY from you.

With a very relaxed gaze focused mostly on shadow of her raised foot (its barely seen and sometimes leaves the box completely) you can get her to to stay faced toward you and doing a little left-right shimmy.

And, No! I haven't been fooling with this for the last two hours straight. I took a nap.

I can imagine what this little exercise says about my life, but not sure what it says about my brain!

Physically block the view of her spinning body with your hand, but leave the shadows visible. Follow the raised leg instructions above, then remove your hand.

In firefox you can press "ESC" and stop her and just check out her nipples.

See won't come back!!! Oh... "refresh."
As an aside. In firefox, the word "firefox" gets highlighted by the spelling checker.

I could reverse it literally with the blink of an eye and preprogramming my expectation. ?

Hey what's the sensitivity about nipples? Most of us have them. And I sort of like them. On the right person. For me.

Wondering if we aren't having an Ashcroft moment there.

This is very well done -- does anyone know who made it? There doesn't seem to be a credit at that site.

It would be interesting to find out if the person(s) who made the video clip did it as a L/R brain test. But even if they did, I doubt very much that that's what determines how one initially perceives the direction. I would think of many other variables (such as L/R handedness, for example) before thinking of L/R brain. There is no reason anyone has explained why L/R brain dominance has anything to do with perception of direction -- and I doubt that it does.

For me it was also clockwise initially, but after some effort I could make it switch at will -- the switch happens, if I will it, at the point where the raised leg is aligned with the one that stays vertical.

Does anyone here cross their eyes to see stereo patterns on bathroom floors?

Saw this at kos. Until tonight, I was unable to see it other than clockwise. After following some suggestions to try using peripheral vision, I was able to see it as anti-clockwise.

Now I am able to switch it at will. The key is not to try to see her as spinning one way or th other, but to see her from either an ascending angle or a descending angle. If you are looking upwards at her, she is spinning anti-clockwise; if you are looking downwards at her, ten she is spinning clockwise.

Does anyone here cross their eyes to see stereo patterns on bathroom floors?

Between about 1967 and 1975, I didn't have to cross my eyes. But that's a different discussion.

I discovered that I could cause it to switch directions at will by looking above or below the dancer and "flicking" my eyes. It is probably just a variation of Betty Black's ascending/descending angle observation.

The only way I can see it CCW is if the picture is covered except for the very ends of her extended foot and arm, and the very bottom of her foot, and even then, I have to look away a bit and use my peripheral.

This doesn't feel like a good test to be honest. If you look straight at her, I feel like you can't help but see her as going clockwise, if only by going by the logic of her body.

It started clockwise and seemed to be unchangeble. However, turned away for a moment and then looked back and it was turning counter-clockwise. And I think/feel that I have many of the attributes in both columns.

But that's a different discussion.

It shouldn't be. I think that those kinds of experiences (I'm talking about what you were doing between 1967 and 1975) can change one's perceptive agility.

By the way, a couple more observations about the video, which is a very sphisticated piece of work:

1. The shadow was added by computer -- as a mirror image of the body. It is not a true shadow.

2. The dancer does not jump. In fact, I believe that dancer did not move at all during the shooting. She was on a turntable, motionless. That is the only way to explain why the leg she is supposed to be jumping with does not bend when she hits the ground.

3. One more guess: This is probably not a real woman -- but a sculpture, or a wax model. Not only is she motionless on a turntable (the jumping was added by computer), but if you see the frames where she faces left and right (180 degrees away from each other) they are perfect mirror images of each other -- the hand positions, and even the pony tail shape, are identical. And this would also explain why there is no perceptible jerkiness when one cycle ends and the next begins.

Very slick job. And it has nothing to do with L/R brain.

When I look straight on, clockwise. When I look to the side and wait (peripheral), she sometimes reverses direction--and then I can stare straight at her and she continues counter-clockwise until a look away and return. Then clockwise again.

ps: I guess the person who wrote this wasn't familiar with the term "counter-clockwise." "Anti-clockwise" sounds dorky.

pps: She definitely has nipples. What's that about?

Try a long blink. Start viewing the dancer at the correct phase of her cycle. Catch a later view and she "rotates" the other direction.

WHEN you start to look is Most important.

The right-brain left-brain palaver is malarkey.

And of course no dancer can spin like this while keeping both arms -- and legs -- in exactly the same position with respect to the body, never bending a single joint.

(Not to mention that she looks too perfect to be real.)

According to neurologica blog, the scientific explanation has nothing to do with "right-brain" or "left-brain" dominance.

It's clockwise for me no matter how much I stare at it. My wife sees it both ways, and she can make it switch directions. For whatever it's worth.

Two words: geek losers.

The secret is in imagination. Look away so the dancer is only in peripheral vision and in your mind, picture what she would look like rotating in the opposite direction. If you can imagine what the opposite direction would look like, the dancer in peripheral vision will also move that way.

Well, there may be nothing to this left-brain/right-brain business, but this web page can actually read your mind.

am not sure, but that video of the dancer, it might be manipulted to
change direcetion in mid action, so it is NOT our eyes doing it or our
brain but a TRICK of the makers of that video. look again. i notice,
at certain points, the dancer stops and goes in the other
direction....maybe this is a trick thing. We better ask KEVIN DRUM
because i found it on his sight! -- danny

Kevin
where did you find that video and WHO made it? i smell a fish.

danny bloom it might be manipulted to
change direcetion in mid action, so it is NOT our eyes doing it or our brain but a TRICK of the makers of that video

It's no trick, merely a very simple animated gif; you can easily view the individual frames using a program like Animation Shop from PSP. With practice you can make the rotation direction change easily using your imagination, which is all that's at work here.

Of course, this thing is from an Australian news site.

OH THAT EXPLAINS IT. IT'S FAKE. get over it, Kevin!

danny bloom, there are no tricks. This is simply a visual illusion, like this one, only it involves motion.

idlemind -- that one is too obvious. They switch all the cards!

After trying this for several minutes my only thought was "Why doesn't someone turn the *&@§#! lights on!" I guess that indicates my thinking occurs primarily about 30 inches below my brain.

;o)

''With practice you can make the rotation direction change easily using your imagination, which is all that's at work here.''

FOR SURE? i believe you, but still, i smell a rat. something fishy there. is there any way to get to the bottom of this? the internet is full of faux things.....this might be one.....

Bob, you may be missing something in the curiosity department.

Idlemind. Well called. I don't think you ever tried playing bridge. There are no matches.

"Be very afraid." Hah.

I can only see it going anti-clockwise no matter what I do.

But all morning I've been working hard on organizing a tour of Oxford, writing directions, etc., very analytical left brain stuff.

Maurinsky: "nipples ...... seriously, was that necessary?"

Yes, unless you want us all to have a state-enforced nipplectomy before we're allowed to dance!

A new and interesting role for all those interogators coming back from Iraq?

clockwise

"I showed it to a room of about 20 beer-drinking Earth scientists (grad students and PhDs) and the great majority got the right brain view, which seem opposite of what it claims. There were a few people who saw it as anticlockwise."

^ Interesting.

Try drawing the letter 'Q' on your forehead.

---

Supposedly, if you drew the letter with the tail over your right eye you are "self-oriented"--drawing the 'Q' as it would look were you, yourself, reading it.

The opposite: a pause, then drawing it the letter it'd read to an observer displays a concern, a thoughtful control of what would typically be an instinctual action--how are the others perceiving you?

Glasses half-empty, tails drawn over eyes, clock-wise dancers? It's difficult to tell how much these tests actually say about your mental orientation... though I suppose they communicate something, even if it's at terribly base level.

Okay, in what follows I am going to brand myself as hopelessly "left brained" (buying into the left brain-right brain myth for didactic purposes) even though I preferentially make the dancer spin clockwise.

I recall that the center of our vision is basically blank. (O) and is filled in by our brains, after all the pupil is just that. A hole. Ya Know at 9:27

The hole in the visual field has nothing to do with the pupil -- it is where the optic nerve connects to the retina, since there are no rods/cones there.

This might give some support to the notion that it's a right brain vs left brain issue, since the right eye goes to the left side of the brain. Bill Mitchell at 9:34

Only the right half of the right eye's visual field connects to the left hemisphere, as also does the right half of the left eye's visual field. And vice versa.

I see the dancer only going CCW. First she's facing me, then her boobs are pointing right, then she's facing away, then her boobs are pointing left, etc.

Some commenters at Marginal Revolution are saying that there's no difference in the image between the dancer facing forward and facing away. But since you can't pause the rotating image, it's impossible to check that out. (A search for "rotating dancer" on YouTube was a washout.)

And similarly, there'd have to be no way to distinguish between the dancer facing towards 1 o'clock and 5 o'clock, between 7:30 and 10:30, etc.

Hey, I'm way more impressed that there are at least two other mixed brain dominants here (that was the count at the point where I quit reading).

We're an exceedingly rare group indeed...and usually signifies v high IQ to boot, so yeah, it's kind of lonely out on the far end of the distribution.

“The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.�
—Voltaire

There is a significant, interesting core of real neurology and psychology in left/right brain work. (Those who care could start by following Google-Wikipedia trails beginning with Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga.)

But a huge amount of over-extrapolation, pop-psychobabble and sheer woo-woo has accreted around it -- most of it no more substantial than phrenology or tarot.

The perception of clockwise or counterclockwise rotation hinges on a fairly low-level step in visual processing. The chance that it tells you anything useful about cerebral dominance is small. The chance that it tells you anything useful about personality or temperament is zero.

I can change the direction easily. What does that mean? I'm bi?

low-tech cyclist: are saying that there's no difference in the image between the dancer facing forward and facing away. But since you can't pause the rotating image, it's impossible to check that out.

As I noted earlier, use a program like Animation Shop or a freeware program like XnView and you can see each individual frame. The animation is made up of a total of 34 images, and the facing forward and away images are definitely different. Of the 34 images, only two (17 and 33) show front and back views with the legs joined "mermaid" fashion. I took those two frames, mirrored one of them, then layered it over the other, and reduced opacity to show the difference; look here:
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Peregrinor/technical/dancer_17_34.jpg

(The height above the floor and relationship to the shadow is also different; the foot is touching the floor only in frame 33, while it is far over the floor in 17.)

What gives? I made a post last night, and it never showed up. Anyway, if you view the dancer as standing on her left foot, she spins clockwise, but if you view her as standing on her right foot, then she spins counter-clockwise. If you stop the motion by hitting escape or doing a click-drag with your mouse (at least those two work on my computer), then you can see that the still picture can be interpreted both ways.

Ah, I figured it out---if you use embedded URLS in your post, then it gets held up for moderation. So I'll just let people cut and paste.

Here is a still of the dancer:

http://dee-mccullough.com/dancer.bmp

Here, suggestive lines are drawn so that you
can see her as standing on her left foot, with her face towards you:

http://dee-mccullough.com/dancer1.bmp

Here, lines are drawn so that you can see her as standing on her right foot, with her face away from you.

http://dee-mccullough.com/dancer2.bmp

Definitely counter-clockwise.

Kevin, try scrolling down so you only see the tip of her foot and the shadow of her foot. It's pretty easy to see it either way with that view, then you can scroll back up, hold your focus on the foot, and then see the image rotating either way.

I did that because I couldn't break from clockwise. I was able to see counterclockwise that way, but only for a few rotations, then it just popped back to clockwise.

OK - I sat here trying to see this thing both ways, couldn't do it.

My wife was standing behind me, watching it trying to do the same - I saw it counterclockwise, she saw it clockwise.

I moved my hand towards my mouse at just underneath my monitor & the direction changed for her. I stood back & she moved her hand around at the bottom of the monitor & it changed direction for me too.

If you can't see this thing both ways, try this, it's friggin crazy.

This is wierd. It says I should have to concentrate to make it move counter-clockwise, but when I focus I can't get it to do anything. If I look away and then look back, however, it will often change it's direction? Other times it just changes while I'm looking at it, but I can't seem to force a change.

The perception of clockwise or counterclockwise rotation hinges on a fairly low-level step in visual processing. The chance that it tells you anything useful about cerebral dominance is small. The chance that it tells you anything useful about personality or temperament is zero.

I was wondering about that. Any pointers to the science of the perception issue, specifically about the direction of rotation? A quick Google search turned up nothing more than "Yeah, it's [counter] clockwise for me." repeated dozens of times.

Oh, and nice Julian Jaynes reference, Kevin, even if it's not relevant.

Well, after she first appeared as counter-clockwise to me, she quickly changed directions. I find I can almost always have her turn according to my will. But, she's cagey.

If you're wondering whether you are more logical or more creative then think about your life a little more carefully.

If you're wondering whether hemispheric dominance can influence perception of an ambiguous movement pattern, show this picture to 40 creative and 40 logical people and record their clockwise/counterclockwise judgments. Then go to grad school, if you haven't already.

If you're an employee of a newspaper trying to create a little buzz for his CV, put the gif on the web as if it were a diagnostic tool for creativity.

The answer is simple. She's turning to her own right. Whether that's "clockwise" or "anticlockwise" depends on your definition, as demonstrated above, and that's where the ambiguity lies.

I can't see the nipples. Damn.

Strongly clockwise for me. After reading all the helpful comments, I've tried looking at it with my peripheral vision, and then I was able to see it as CCW.

But now it is making me dizzy.

This is just obscene! This picture can only cause problems of the flesh! Typical of liberal blogs that post pornography.

WTF? The picture does not turn for me - it is a still image in GIF format.

But it can be seen as facing either forward or backward.

Somehow it's randomly changing directions. I can see her stop and change direction when her leg is pointed toward the viewer.

"I showed it to a room of about 20 beer-drinking Earth scientists (grad students and PhDs) and the great majority got the right brain view, which seem opposite of what it claims. There were a few people who saw it as anticlockwise."

Dude. Earth scientists are creative big picture people who like to drink beer. If you want a logical detail-oriented person head over to biochem.

The image turns with Firefox, not IE - I must be missing a plugin for IE. It turns both ways.

RSA: there's a better class of discussion :-) with some further links currently running at the NeuroLogica Blog. David Marr's Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information is a modern classic in the field.

Think of the Necker cube and other "is is this way or that?" optical illusions turning on ambiguous perspective cues: since before we were swinging in trees, evolution has placed a premium on making a snap decision -- either way -- rather than dithering over the ambiguity. So that decision is way down in the firmware if not the wetware itself. It's extremely sensitive to tiny details of timing, lighting, how often you blink, and for all I know what kind of video card your computer has.

Drawing "what kind of person are you?" inferences from what you see, or how readily you can or can't switch between seeings, is just silliness.

I see her doing cartwheels. Must be why nothing has made sense to me the last seven years.

Very wierd. Initially I saw her going only counter, stared for a while, and got her going the other way. For the longest time I couldn't get her to switch back to counter. It seems to me that the key to switching is figuring out which leg to perceive in the foreground at which point in the circle. For some reason, it's much easier for me to switch her from counter- to clockwise than the other way around.

At first, viewing the entire body, clockwise. However, if you scroll down, so you can only see the legs, I saw at least two complete turns counter clockwise - In addition, if one, while viewing the entire body, glances to the print on the left and then returns to the right, there is an anti-clockwise movement.

However, as my wife, who has a Master's in Dance from Mills says, whoever put this together, is definitely not a dancer.

Point a finger at her raised foot and you

can "move" the foot back and forth as if there

is no rotation at all.

I saw it go both directions. Mostly by not paying attention to it.

I can reverse it only by using peripheral vision. It therefore seems equally directed clockwise or counterclockwise.

I only see clockwise.

Okay, I saw the counterclockwise! Good, I was starting to wonder if somebody was crazy. What I did, was cover up everything above her hands. And it switched.

Now it kinda switches back and forth.

She turns the same way all of the time for me.

Relative to a clock on the floor, she is turning clockwise. Relative to a clock on the ceiling, she is turning counterclockwise.

If you ask a professional dancer to pirouette clockwise, she will turn as this dancer turns, or be corrected by the choreographer. A dancer is oriented to the ground beneath her.

I stared at her feet looking up slowly and reversed her.

lrd

Anyone who gets enthused by this image, nipples or not, is obviously not spending enough time at porn sites. A happy netlife requires balance.

I can make the dancer go either way but can debunk the left-brain right-brain BS pretty easily. Don't know if it's been covered in comments so far as I only got about halfway thru the 150 comments preceding mine.

I closed one eye and was able to make the dancer go either way. I repeated with the other eye.

If the direction the dancer moves is dependent on brain hemisphere then surely when you completely shut off the input of one eye you would see the still stimulated hemisphere move the dancer the direction it supposedly indicates. But the dancer can go either way with either eye. Brain hemisphere is not the controlling factor.

Clockwise. I'm right brained!

[T]here's a better class of discussion :-) with some further links currently running at the NeuroLogica Blog.

Thanks, Monte. (I happen to have Marr's book on my shelf, but I haven't looked through it for a few years. I agree, though: a classic.)

Not sure if I'm repeating, as there are too many posts to read, but while I agree that there's probably something to rightbrain/leftbrain, this test is a dismal predictor of either.

I meant to add that an interesting class of visual phenomena I am aware of deals with change blindness. You can see examples here:

http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/healey/PP/index.html

Scroll down about two thirds of the way to the end, to the Change Blindness section, and click on one of the pictures. You'll see an alternation between two scenes that are apparently identical. They're not, but our visual systems aren't set up to identify the differences easily, the way they're presented.

Nice boobs.

I closed one eye and was able to make the dancer go either way. I repeated with the other eye.

I believe it's not so simple. I think the only way to isolate the input to one side of the brain is to restrict the visual field in each eye. There are special glasses, with some clever technology, that can do this, I believe.

I was checking the blogs after Sunday Morning Porn. Had a flashback to minutes before.

The woman does not dance. All motion is an illusion.

Spoon boy: Do not try and change the dancer's motion. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no motion.
Neo: There is no motion?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the dancer that spins, it is only yourself.

Quickly as you can, snatch the nipple from my hand.

I mean pebble.

Anti at first, read the text, then clockwise, then pretty much at will, sometimes by peripheral seeing, sometimes by blurring seeing. Very clever.

Center your sight on the image then switch your gaze from left to right. Back and forth. Back and forth. The image pivots.

I have no idea what this says about my brain. Nothing good, I imagine. Maybe in the morning I'm left-brained and in the afternoon I'm right-brained?

The worst thing this probably suggests about you is surrender to conventional bias.

Mindful of oversimplification, it's generally settled that handedness is related to and somewhat predictive of laterality, though hardly deterministic.

Otherwise, need we say it? The pantheon of notable lefties is vast and wide; it includes: Aristotle, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Benjamin Franklin, Newton, Einstein, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Napoleon. Also Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Ravel, Chaplin, Wynton Marsalis, David Byrne, Phil Collins, Oprah, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Marilyn Monroe, Garbo, De Niro, Redford, Steve McQueen, Tom Cruise, Bobby Fisher, Bill Gates, Letterman, Pelé, Dorothy Hamill, Mark Spitz, Gayle Sayers, Kenny Stabler, Larry Bird, Nate Archibald, Rod Laver, Martina Navratilova ...

P.S. You can also expedite counterclockwise perception by focusing exclusively on her (extended) foot as cover her upper torso; i.e., narrowing your field of vision, as someone mentioned above.

Kevin: "Hooray! I finally got her to change direction."

Is she jumping up and down dow?

It's very stable if you look straight at it, but it will sometimes switch if it's in your peripheral vision. The interesting thing is that if it's going clockwise, the right hand is furthest out, whereas for anticlockwise it's the left.

My first look was counter. then i realized that all you have to do to make the switch is watch it with either your right visual field (eyes focused to the right so that she's in your left peripheral vision) or your left visual field (eyes focused on a point to the left of her so that sher's in your right peripheral vision). that's because each visual field goes to the oppposite side of the brain. Interesting that it works. you'll see her switch as the movement makes that stutter.

When I looked at it the dancer kept switching directions. I had my wife look at it and she saw the same thing. Then we looked at it together and told each other when we saw the dancer switch directions and we were in agreement only about half the time.

WTF!!???

I've tried every single suggestion made and she ALWAYS spins clockwise for me. Which is weird because I do computer programming for a living and scored in the 99.9 percentile in the logic section of the GRE.

I've been trying it for almost an hour. I've walked away, tried the periphrial vision thing, covered up everything but here feet, covered everything but her shadow,use the mouse suggestion.

Nothing, not a damn thing works for me, she's always spinning to her left (counterclockwise).

Ditto for me Dr. Morpheus - about seeing only clockwise, not the GRE and profession but. It's driving me nuts. Why can't I see it! I also tried last night and this morning, so it's not related to that ...

First: counter-clockwise.
Then, every time I glanced below the dancer, she reversed direction. Does this prove that I'm well-rounded? Or that I'm easily persuaded? I think I'll take the former.

And to the lady who seems outraged that the dancer has nipples, I would say: yes, it's necessary. At least, biological evolution has decided that it is.

Why is the dancer a naked lady?

Ferd came close above (in what looks like a typo) to the rude but obvious joke:

Whichever way you see the dancer move her breasts are going cockwise.

Dr. Morpheus:

The clockwise/counterclockwise perception is completely determined by whether you see the dancer as standing on her left foot or right foot. Can you see that the same picture can be interpreted both ways? See my modified pictures (h t t p : / / dee-mccullough.com/dancer1.bmp and h t t p : / / dee-mccullough.com/dancer2.bmp) to see how the same picture can be interpreted both ways.
(I'm putting extra spaces into the urls so as to fool Kevin's stupid automated moderation program, which holds up any post with urls in it).

If you see her as standing on her left foot, she will appear to rotate clockwise. If you see her as standing on her right foot, she will appear to rotate counter-clockwise.

Pretty trippy. Apparently combing the blogs is mostly a left-brain activity for me, as that's what I saw in the dancer for a long time. But when I redirected my attention to the television or something else, when I returned to look at the dancer it was a right-brain thing. Once it got going on the right-brain thing it would pretty much keep it up except when I used a few "triggers", the most interesting of which was just doing some prepositional logic exercises in my head (George is blue, blue is cool, George is cool...at the moment the conclusion comes, that's when the dancer changes direction, not when setting up the prepositions).

Also, a memory would sometimes break the right-brain and change to the left-brain. It happened a few times where I noticed it, but wasn't really repeatable by consciously remembering something (the times memory did kick the left-brain in, it wasn't a conscious attempt to remember).

Admittedly, I had my doubts at first that it wasn't just random, and the site was messing with us, but focusing on the logical prepositions seemed to work everytime (as did watching the TV or engaging in some other distraction).

I saw her spin clockwise first. She changed direction for me rather quickly. I stared directly at her with no result, but when I looked to the left, she flipped direction in my peripheral vision. She spun counter-clockwise for a short while and changed seemingly of her own volition. It was difficult and erratic to change her back until I began to look at the figure from below and to the right. No I can do it almost at will (the time it takes to change is not consistent.

I am more left brained, than right. Oh yeah. I can only see her nips when I get her to spin counter-clockwise. The tease!

I saw this a few days ago and saw her always counterclockwise; couldn't reverse it no matter how hard I tried. I looked at it more closely today and realized why: when her foot swings 180 degrees from center to right to center, it appears to diminish in size (as if it were moving farther away). Then as it completes its rotation back on the left side, it grows in apparent size (i.e., it's coming closer). Therefore, I truly cannot see how she can be turning in any fashion other than counterclockwise.

Oh, and by the way: straight men are just gross. All you can see are the nipples? Grow up.

Why am i the only doubter here who thinks the video is a fake? Are there any other dissenters? Or does everyone want to be taken in by this? It is fun, yes, is it true? I believe the actual animation is set to go both ways and entire reason for the show is to create discussion. Yes or no?

Nueroglocl says it best: See, it was all a bamboozle. We've been bamboozled. Again!

"This news article, like many others, ignores the true source of this optical illusion and instead claims it is a quick test to see if you use more of your right brain or left brain. This is utter nonsense, but the “right-brain/left brain� thing is in the public consciousness and won’t be going away anytime soon....While it is fun to look for hidden pictures, this amounts to little more than a game and is not a valid test for anything.''

Here's the stupidest thing: "Philosophy" is right-brained, "logic" and, apparently, all rational thought, are left-brained. Why yes! Aristotle was not logical!