I have a question for you. What do you think, is this girl spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise?
If you think it is spinning only one way and not the other, look away and then look at it again. Has it changed since you had first laid eyes on it? Can you change the way you see it at will? :) That's the beauty of this illusion.
The
Spinning Dancer, also known as the silhouette illusion, is a kinetic, bistable optical illusion resembling a pirouetting female dancer. The illusion, created by web designer Nobuyuki Kayahara, (
his website) involves the apparent direction of motion of the figure.
There are studies that report that how you see the girl spinning determines which part of your brain you think from. If you see this moving clockwise, you use your right brain. If you see in counterclockwise, you are using your left brain. Why is it important? According to
this report in The Sunday Times, the left brain and the right brain control different aspects of the way you think.
Left brain function:
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe
Right brain functions:
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking
When I read this, I was confused as to how to categorize myself. Because I see it happening both ways, and can control it as well! Don't I think from any side at all? (That would surely explain several things!)
I wonder if all this brain hemisphere analysis is true. In my opinion, it is merely an optical illusion. How can an optical illusion determine how your brain thinks? May be it does... may be it doesn't. Frankly, I do not find any significant differences in the above report of the left brain and right brain. I thought the hemispheres of the brain decide is handedness and language function. May be a neurological explanation can back up all this.
That's when I came across
this post in a blog dedicated to Neuroscience. According to Steven Novella, the author of the post, it's just an illusion! And it has nothing to do with hemispherical dominance of either side of the brain.
[...] 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. Sure, we have two hemispheres that operate fine independently and have different abilities, but they are massively interconnected and work together as a seamless whole (providing you have never had surgery to cut your corpus callosum).
We also do have hemispheric dominance, but that determines mostly your handedness and the probability of language being on the right or the left. There is also often asymmetry for memory, with some being right or left hemisphere dominant. But none of this means that your personality or abilities are more right brain or left brain. That much is nonsense.
Further, how your visual cortex constructs this optical illusion says nothing about your hemispheric dominance, and is absolutely not a quick personality profile. [...]
Aside, I found this piece astounding. It replaces my all time favorite illusion: the
Lilac Chaser.
