Is the girl spinning clockwise or anti-clockwise?
Funny thing is she usually looks like she’s spinning clockwise to me, although if I concentrate I can make her look like she’s going the other way. That supposedly makes me right-brained, which is surprising since I think of myself as lopsidedly left-brained.
(Via Instapunk.)
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Given no links or cites, I question their claim that this has anything to do with left/right brain.
But then, I question the whole left/right brain issue. Much like the Uncertainty Principle, it’s a precise and limited set of scientific observations that has been wildly distorted in the popular culture and used to support all sorts of claims where it really doesn’t apply. As Wikipedia says (at least until somebody edits it):
But it’s an impressive illusion!
How are you defining counter-clockwise?
FWIW if she was a screw she would be coming out in my view.
I can’t focus on anything but her boobies.
What does that make me?
I too dispute the ‘left/right brain’ distinction supposedly showed by this. It easily changes if I concentrate.
I have to admit the detail in the mammary area is a little distracting for accurate scientific analysis.
As far as I’m concerned I can make her spin either way, but it is easier to see here “screwing” into the ground.
heh… he said “screwing” heh heh
Alan: Most screws screw in clockwise, and unscrew counterclockwise. If you see her “unscrewing,” then you’re probably seeing counterclockwise. But if you watch it long enough you’ll probably see her reverse herself. That’s the illusion–you can see it either way.
Well, there’s another point they hadn’t considered— as a dancer, she must be turning counter-clockwise, since the other direction would be physically impossible without flexing the leg. By calling her a dancer, they insure that anyone who dances or studies dance would assume the widdershins rotation. (Legs trail; they do not lead when extended.)
BDurbin,
That sounds like a left brain response to me….
She’s definitely going clockwise for me. Concentration on flipping her doesn’t seem to work, though I can usually get optical illusions to oscillate.
But then, I’m strongly ‘right brained’ (insofar as that term has any meaning) as I’m left-handed.
This went around several weeks ago and I still get search traffic for my post. Which I never updated to note that I deconstructed an animated GIF of the thing and found that it does indeed turn clockwise at all times. Any perception of it turning the other way is indeed an optical illusion, which seems to be triggered by the shadow of the feet.
The left/right brain part is probably nonsense.
Counterclockwise… waited, couldn’t get it to reverse. I’m a leftie.
Actually, I think it’s caused by the fact that our brain insists on imputing “depth” to a familiar shape when there’s just none to be found in an all-black image. If the rotating object were a random, unfamiliar shape, we might not perceive depth at all; but because it’s a human form, we “know” one leg and hip and arm must be in front, so we iterpret that information into the picture.
No, I’m not a neuro- psyho- any-sort-of-ologist, just a hobbyist. But I found that the most reliable way I could get the image to flip was to ignore the rotation and insist to myself that a given hip (or leg or arm, but hips seemed to work best) was in front. Then as the legs swung, I could “see” that “front” hip swinging one way or another to match the legs. And as my judo instructor used to tell us, the rest of the body followed the hips.
I could see her going both directions, and even change midway so it wouldn’t be a complete rotation both ways. I’m a righty, my husband a lefty, and viewing it at the same time we saw her going different directions. My daughter is also a righty and with both of us looking at it at the same time, we saw her going in different directions. Watch her feet.
Nice little mnenomic for most screws and lightbulbs: lefty loosey, righty tighty. I have come across the opposite on rare occasions, tho.
Oh, sorry, that should be “mnemonic.” Anyone know of a good one for the spelling if it?
Counter clockwise for me.
Jay, I’d be curious as to how you did such a reconstruction, because my analysis is that she’s clearly not “spinning” at all, it’s just a shape on a loop that can be seen as going in either direction.
As for those of you who can’t see her going in any other direction but one, watch her extended foot, and when you think of it as being in “back,” start thinking of it as being in front instead, and vice-versa. Suddenly it’ll look like she’s flipped in your mind, when actually it’s just an illusion whichever way you see it.
I see her moving CW, and its very hard to ignore the visual clues that don’t allow her to be moving CCW. I can only do it by covering up the upper half of the image.
I deconstructed an animated GIF of the thing and found that it does indeed turn clockwise at all times.
I agree.
I play way too much 3D online gaming, in which decoding this kind of situation correctly and quickly is important, so my brain is probably overtrained and doesn’t want to misinterpret the image.
it’s just a shape on a loop that can be seen as going in either direction.
True, but if you break it down I think you find more evidence it’s going CW than CCW.
When I view it as CCW for a portion of the picture and then try to hold that as I view the rest, my visual cortex seems to get upset.
Hmm. Well I mostly see her going CW and have to concentrate to get CCW so I can’t exactly refute you, but the fact that others see it CCW immediately says something…
Bullshit babble, all this.
She has a pair of pronounced tits located on here chest and a ponytail on the back of her head. You can clearly see her tits disappearing, first the right one and then the left, as her front side spins out of view. Then her ponytail disappears in the same direction as her back and ass spin out of view.
I write left-handed, use a fork with my left hand and a knife with my right hand. I shoot firearms from either side of my body, depending on alignment of the gunsights because my right eye gives bettter vision than my left one. I through balls right-handed.
I don’t know which side of my brain controls my actions, because I never got into my ROM or microprocessor; and things being what they are, I never expect even to get a look inside.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Not to worry Arnold, they don’t give the ‘draw the clock test’ for memory loss usually until one of the relatives says, grandpaw has a problem, or he can’t find his glasses, or the remote, ever.
Seriously, visual-spatial orientation is different for different individuals. That the gif was all programmed to run clockwise doesn’t mean a lot since the computer screen isn’t three dimensional but two dimensional.
And the human mind views what is presented to it as threat or non-threat, as well as depth perception, distance away, mode of action, motion etc. If you stare at something in the near distance, the mind will adjust attempting to use other parts of the perceptive processes whether right or left sides.
Fatigue, lack of sleep, age, are just a few of the factors that the brain inputs. What is becoming apparent, is that the brain is not at all like a computer, and the more scientists study it, the more they are convinced that the computer-mind paradigm model is insufficient.
Back to the spinning girl. I saw it as running clock-wise then CCW and now that my mind is used to it, I don’t change the direction but just looking and waiting I see CW and CCW. That blends in with my current brain/mental perceptive capacity for visual-spatial orientation.
So I’m not sure its really an illusion. The visual perceptive mind is an active kind of thing that presents subtle pre-judgements before it makes its mind up of what it is. And the first judgement it makes is: threat or no threat. Then, it can go into the higher intelligent centers and evaluate if it ought to act or not act.
That’s the way I see it.
I see her going clockwise, and no matter how long I look, I can’t see her going the other direction. I must have a one track mind…
Jan
The illusion is inherent to two-dimensional representations with insufficient depth cues to resolve ambiguity. Here is another (a static image). Is the naked man running toward the cowboy on the left, or away from the cowboy on the right? You can see it either way pretty easily.
You know, I really like that album, and I never noticed that about the cover before.
I grabbed an animated GIF of it online. It’s by no means new to that article where it was posted and managed to generate so much traffic. I opened it in Jasc’s Animation Shop that came with Paint Shop Pro 5 and saw all the individual frames, of which there are surprisingly few.
I could send you the GIF, and I believe I could even send you the series of images that make up the animation, as IIRC Animation Shop allows each individual piece to be saved or copied.
McK,
Thanks for the scientific tips on seeing which way a pair of tits were spinning in an animated drawing.
As things turned out, I was fatigued, I hadn’t slept since I got out of bed yesterday morning, and I was 73 years old yesterday.
Today, looking it over again, I’m still 73 years old. But it’s the middle of the day, when my rural but exurban life doesn’t permit me to act fatigued.
And the lady is still spinning clockwise.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
jaymaster, that’s very funny since I’m an artist.
In theater, hence the comments about the dancer.
Of course, I can test very strongly left-brained anytime I want to, which is fun because it baffles any proctors who know me well. All that really means is that I learned my lessons very well in school, which is heavily tilted towards left-brain learning styles— it took me until college and beyond to figure out why I could, for example, ace any philosophy paper but only garner skeptical comments from English professors. English profs want highly constructed arguments on very little evidence (sometimes entirely fabricated, but still extremely progressive), while philosophy profs don’t mind a little intuitive leap every once in a while.
I have been tested so much and so often since I was young that the real fun in being tested now is to deconstruct the sucker and turn it around on the proctor. It keeps them from getting too bored.
I’d love to see it, Jay. Email me or post on your blog and I’ll read it.
You know, I really like that album, and I never noticed that about the cover before.
Well, you expect him to be running away because of the scenario. But I think the art is intended to be ambiguous. I don’t have the CD handy but I seem to recall there’s another illustration in the booklet that is ambiguous in another way.
I jsut wonder why those cowboys are rounding up elves.
If you really want to confuse your mind, you can interpret the ENTIRE album cover as either two cowboys trying to rope the guy fleeing on foot, or the guy on foot chasing two cowboys – the one on the left is stopping and turning away, the one on the right is using his lasso to left-handed whip his horse to run away faster. (Or they are all converging on a point, or fleeing an unseen rattlesnake.)
I can reverse the direction of the dancer more-or-less at will be concentrating on one point or another.
Dean, you should have a big e-mail from me with the files I mentioned.
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