right vs left brain

- clockwise

The first time I saw this (was on Digg a few months ago) I spent about ten minutes looking at it, and figured out how to change the direction at will.
I found that looking at a spot that doesn't move much (i.e. the leg not pointed outwards) and blinking works. You might need to do it a few times, or keep changing the spot you're looking at, but it should do it eventually.

I saw clockwise first, and then changed it to anti.

Yeah this was linked to me a while back, and I can change the direction too. But at first it's clockwise.

i showed it to my gf and she got so mad because she couldn't see it go counter haha
I can change the direction by blinking but sometimes I can't until after a few tries, strange

Do this, and more than likely, the animation will change direction every time: Place your hand on the monitor, or very close to it, with your fingers (at the tips) about a 1/4 inch apart, to where you can see the dancer through them but not completely. Every time you put your hand up, then remove it, you should see the dancer spinning in the opposite direction.

Works for me.

This only reason this tricks your brain is because there is no shading, lighting or texture on the model, therefore there is no way for the human brain to register the movement by depth perception. This is when either the left or the right side of the brain decides to take over and make a wild guess.

With some people, the left and right side of the brain will literally fight over which will comprehend this trickery and thats why sometimes you see it one way, and sometimes the other.

If you look at the dancer, you'll notice that spinning clockwise, her position looks natural for that direction. When she seems to be spinning counter-clockwise, you'll notice that her body positioning (arms especially) look unnatural, like shes spinning backwards.

What causes you to think shes spinning clockwise is naturally the position of her arms. What causes you to think shes spinning counter-clockwise is when you notice the shadow is always spinning counter-clockwise, and that it doesn't quite fit the clockwise motion.

So the trick here is to design a model that looks natural spinning one direction (clockwise) and your right brain calculates this, but putting an element such as her shadow that spins in the opposite direction of what her natural pose represents, then causes your left brain to kick in because it seems to be the logical thing to do regardless of her pose.

Heh, I only changed the direction like once. As it is it took quite a while to get it to work. I had gotten bored and given up a few times before it changed, and after it did I gave up on changing it again.

However the boys that linked it were amused for an extremely long time. Tell her to try again, and be patient. I'm betting everyone can change the directions.

well, if you focus enough you can change direction pretty easily. first time i looked at it it was clockwise, then counterclockwise with some focusing :)

btw, these things are funny, anyone got more similar stuff?

Yeah now I can change the direction really fast and easily.

haha thats pretty cool
first clockwise but I could switch the direction pretty easily by looking from a bit more a distance or looking a way for a sec

me too
now i can change it whenever i want to

that was pretty cool.
At first I saw it going counter, but now every time I visit the page, it's going clockwise.
WHAT DOES IT MEEEEEEAN?!

she spins clockwise.

I can't get her to spin counterclockwise.. clockwise looks so natural.

I got clockwise... right-brainer. It hurt my head to see the transition to counter, but the transition back was comfortable. But I've always been tested as a left or half-n-half...

you can do both

do this: make some math (simple if you want like 2+58, 49-13) then you will watch it counter clockwise

then take a pencil and a paper and do some sketches, don't force yourself just do whatever your imagination is able to do in that moment (a house, some circles, a sun, etc) and you will see the image clockwise.

for me she went both ways. hehe.

oh god, she's randomly switching now :O

wut did i start here :o

:O

counter-clockwise... dammit, I'm getting more and more logical and boring...
need some creativity juices flowing :P

Eat some cheese. That always makes me feel good ;)

@plain-doh: LOL

Clockwise naturally and couldn't change very easily at will without pausing the clip.

I started clockwise. I tried to get it to switch by covering most of the image save the side. It didn't work at first, that is, until I tried the other side. Then I could switch it at will. Crazy. I love stuff like this.

You can see the image dirrectly as it is just a .gif file.

I see both, weird.

Clockwise, the the other, clockwise then the other.

Odd - on first glance, I saw it as anti-clockwise, which means I use my right brain more. But I'm a right-hander here, which should mean I use my left brain more if I remember correctly...