Spinning Dancer
So Cari shared this optical illusion with me: The Right Brain vs Left Brain. Before reading the article’s content, I’d like you to first stare at the spinning dancer and see if she’s going clockwise or counter-clockwise.
You can also see the dancer here:
Click image to start animation or view it in the gallery.
If you could comment which orientation you first saw it in, I’d like to collect some statistics.
Most people I know saw her originally as spinning clockwise, which leads me to think the right brain vs left brain thing doesn’t really make sense, since most of the people I work with I would say are logical and math/science based instead of “uses feelings”. Then again, I’ve been able to get the dancer to swap orientations, so what does that say about me? What does it say about those who can swap them easier than others?
Anyway, if you want to get her to swap, we found staring at the legs and focusing at shadow helps. Sometimes closing your eyes for a bit or looking away helps too.
What’s happening here is that there is very little hints for depth perception, so the brain doesn’t really know which leg is in front of the other. If you truly believe that the dancer is only spinning in one direction or think that the animation is really just randomly switching directions on you, I’d like to give you the following 2 images:
Clockwise:
Click image to start animation or view it in the gallery.
Counter-clockwise:
Click image to start animation or view it in the gallery.
The 2 images above contain all the frames from the original and the frames are in the exact same order, but I’ve added some lines to help with the depth perception. If you think I’ve just reversed the order, then I’d bring you to my final animation:
By having these side by side, where the middle one is the original, it is now a lot easier to switch the orientation of the original. What’s that old saying? Don’t always believe what you see? ;p
One thing I noticed that’s different between the 2 spinning orientations is that the dancer is spinning on different legs. When she’s spinning clockwise, she’s spinning on her left foot. When she’s spinning counter-clockwise, she’s spinning on her right foot.
Xyon did point out that the shadow does align correctly with the counter-clockwise spinning, and maybe that’s why they decided that people who are logical would see her spinning counter-clockwise. But the experiment seems quite lacking and no justification was really given, so I’d wouldn’t say what they’re claiming is definitive.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Other people are pretty sure it has nothing to do with “brain handed-ness” either: http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2007/10/bring-on-dancing-girl.html
October 20th, 2007 at 2:19 am
Looks clockwise to me. I can’t get perceive it the other way except by catching it in the corner of my eye for a split second.
October 20th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Good Job. I was able to get her to switch directions in my brain by concentrating on her foot. But… Then I would blink and she would be going counter clockwise again.
October 27th, 2007 at 1:27 am
Nice work to show how the illusion works. Thanks for dropping by the Bathtub to let us know.
October 27th, 2007 at 5:34 am
Indeed. Very nice work on dissecting the image and I thank you, too, for stopping by rebeccahartong.net with a link to your work. Nice!
November 4th, 2007 at 2:52 am
just amazing. I really appreciate the animation with all three dances — one with lines defining clockwise, the original, and finally one with lines defining counterclockwise.
I was only able to see it clockwise until I saw the line drawings allowing me to see the switch in perspectives.
after that I was able to view it both ways.
Is there some chart that shows statistically how people perceive it? I don’t see how people could see it as anything other than a clockwise spin at first.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:22 am
excellent work!
I was fiddling with her unraised foot rotating in the opposite direction and your perspective makes this easier. I then briefly can rotate her head in the opposite direction.
Any chance of a version with different parts having different perspective so it all rotates differently please?
Thanks
November 15th, 2007 at 5:46 am
Haha! I’ll see what I can do. Probably won’t have time till this weekend.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:47 am
I first saw her going counter-clockwise as viewed from above. As I stared at it, she started oscillating, always facing forward. Interesting. Nice analysis.
November 25th, 2007 at 3:00 am
[...] Spinning Dancer (Last week: #4) [...]
November 26th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Woah, It required me to view the line perspective to turn it from clockwise to counter clockwise. Or else I’d be watching it spin in the clockwise direction forever.
December 26th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Wow, that’s really cool. At first I could only see her spinning counter-clockwise. After looking at the version with the lines that force you to see her spinning clockwise, I was able to see the original spin either way, though I needed to blink to get her to “change” directions.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:54 am
[...] Spinning Dancer (Last week: #9) [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 4:19 am
[...] Spinning Dancer [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Thank you!!! I seriously could not get it until your explanation. Now I will be able to sleep tonight (beer will also help).
February 17th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
[...] Spinning Dancer [...]
March 16th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I can easily make her go anti-clockwise by simply hitting refresh on my browser! Its a daft trick - th animation changes - time it and see it changes at the same point each time and is reset by hitting refresh. You people are seriously gullable.
March 26th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
she always looks as though she is spinning counter-clockwise. no matter how hard i try i can’t get her to spin the other way…
April 21st, 2008 at 11:30 pm
[...] Spinning Dancer [...]
May 11th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
[...] Spinning Dancer [...]
May 17th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Excellent explanation to the original version http://www.shamozzle.com/RightLeftBrainTest.html which has been tripping my mind, thanx heaps Krunkster
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
The reason that most people see the dancer in right brain mode when they first look at it is because almost everyone uses the right brain to process images. So even a very strong left brain person will use their right brain initially. If they have internal dialog then they will almost immediately switch to the left brain and the dancer will change direction. If they focus on the image they will get right brain activity, if they start to speak, or use language, (reading etc) most times it will switch to left brain activity again.
October 13th, 2008 at 3:13 am
totally mental, I managed to get two to turn one way and one the other than flipped them over wonder what that means. well done.