Quote (DarkestLight @ Sun, 11 Oct 2009, 14:47)

I reached the conclusion of her turning right after mimicking her movements in real life
Ok last post rlly XD

Quote (AiNedeSpelCzech @ Sun, 11 Oct 2009, 12:48)

You're not mimicking her movements.  You're mimicking the illusion of her movements because you can only see her moving in one direction at a time.

Quote (macfinn @ Sun, Oct 11 2009, 02:48pm)

he doesnt get it lol

Quote (DarkestLight @ Sun, Oct 11 2009, 02:25pm)

Facing you:
Right shoulder    Left shoulder
Follows right shoulder

Facing same direction as you:
Left shoulder  Right shoulder
Follows right shoulder


Shes turning right

Quote (AiNedeSpelCzech @ Sun, Oct 11 2009, 09:42pm)

I can see it moving in both directions by staring at it for long enough.

Or rather, I can change which direction it appears to be moving in. It spins left for me naturally, but if I focus long enough and think about it, I can see it spinning right.

I find it helps me considerably to spin my fingers in the direction she's -not- heading, then she flips direction eventually.

Quote (TidsL @ Sun, Oct 11 2009, 02:50pm)

Man, this is bugging me ^^ I can't make it look like she's turning left, it's impossible for me.

Quote (TidsL @ Sun, 11 Oct 2009, 14:50)

Man, this is bugging me ^^ I can't make it look like she's turning left, it's impossible for me.

Quote (DarkestLight @ Sun, 11 Oct 2009, 14:50)

You dont get it, macfinn ur not ading nething to this argument, im enjoying a conversation with sum1 who can think here

heres the evidence for her turning right and this is solid if you think about it

edit: ya goin to work, rlly rlly last post here

Quote (AiNedeSpelCzech @ Sun, Oct 11 2009, 02:54pm)

The first time it took me like 5-10 minutes of straight staring. 

Try saying "Left," too. 

It bugged the shit out of me, that's why I forced myself to be able to see it.  I don't like the idea of my brain locking me into a specific perspective. 



Again - it only appears that way.  Her shoulders act in precisely the opposite direction if you're seeing her as spinning left.

I swear to you, I've seen it with my eyes, it's absolutely 100% mirrored movement from the right spin.

Quote (DarkestLight @ Sun, Oct 11 2009, 09:56pm)

But her head and shoulders never change, and nether does the direction that she is spinning, so she can not possibly be spinning in 2 directions
I believe that the illusion is that she is spinning both ways and the answer is that she is spinning right

My evidence supports me on that

Quote (TidsL @ Sun, Oct 11 2009, 02:59pm)

Now it worked for me. :S She only spins to the left now.

Quote (((Dr. Novella - academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine.)))

Take a look at the spinning girl below. Do you see it spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise? I see it spinning counter-clockwise, and I had a hard time getting it to switch direction. Give it a try.

These kinds of optical illusions are always fun. What they reveal is how our brain processes visual information in order to create a visual model of the world. The visual system evolved to make certain assumptions that are almost always right (like, if something is smaller is it likely farther away). But these assumptions can be exploited to created a false visual construction, or an optical illusion.

The spinning girl is a form of the more general spinning silhouette illusion. The image is not objectively “spinning” in one direction or the other. It is a two-dimensional image that is simply shifting back and forth. But our brains did not evolve to interpret two-dimensional representations of the world but the actual three-dimensional world. So our visual processing assumes we are looking at a 3-D image and is uses clues to interpret it as such. Or, without adequate clues it may just arbitrarily decide a best fit – spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. And once this fit is chosen, the illusion is complete – we see a 3-D spinning image.

By looking around the image, focusing on the shadow or some other part, you may force your visual system to reconstruct the image and it may choose the opposite direction, and suddenly the image will spin in the opposite direction.

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.