Strange and interesting tricks of the mind

[rushthatspeaks]

This is the oddest thing I've seen today, courtesy of xsmoonshine.

It really does work, and it isn't a computer trick; if you pause the picture (click and drag, but don't drag) you can see how the art is ambiguous. After a while of focusing, I could get it to go either way at will, despite a very strong initial preference towards clockwise.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Just fascinating. Wow. I seem to be persistently right-brained (I can't yet make her reverse), despite being rather verbal.

I've journaled this, with a link back to your LJ.

Nine

[marith.livejournal.com]

*blinks* I can only see it going clockwise! I've tried pausing it and then trying to see it in the other direction, but no go. It looks very definite to me.

[marith.livejournal.com]

ObParanoidThought: Wouldn't it be interesting if the figure *does* only go clockwise, and the article is a sort of psych experiment?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've seen this before, but it had nothing to do with right brain/left brain and was just considered an experiment in perception. I expect someone tacked the brain-side stuff on later.

And she eventually starts going the other way for me if I just sit and watch her.

[goliard.livejournal.com]

Very cool. With a little practice, you can make her do 180-degree half-turns, changing directions (and legs) on each side. (I think the right brain/left brain connection is probably pop pseudo-science, though.)

[navrins]

Totally counter-clockwise for me. I can't switch it in the amount of time I'm willing to devote to trying, even though intellectually it is obvious to me that the animation couldn't possibly look any different if she were going the other way and therefore logically it *should* be possible to see it both ways... but I can't right now.

[eredien]

That's neat. I can make her switch mid-turn if I concentrate.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Well, of course she turns either direction. It depends on whether you imagine looking at her from the top or the bottom. :)

[glazzal.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. :) Of course I still fail to see her anti-clockwise, argh.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Awesome link, thank you! Most of the time her switching direction is involuntary, but sometimes, if I look off to the side, I can deliberately swtich her. Every once in a while she's changed direction while I was looking right at her, which is particularly freaky, because the instant of transition doesn't parse. This gizmo helps me to understand better what it must be like to live in Samuel Delany's severely dyslexic visual universe. Which is interesting, that a perceptual impairment might also be a form of heightened brain integration.

P.S. Engine Summer is my all-time favorite novel.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I still can't turn her round. I tried taking my glasses off (they're prismatic lenses), but no go. That was an astute remark about Delany--I feel perceptually damaged in a world where this is easy.

Nine

[eibii.livejournal.com]

Wow, I just made myself nauseous, but I see how it works, sort of. Trying to get it to go back and forth like a metronome, however, is not recommended!