Posted by: whymommy | November 18, 2007

Right brain?

My friend Pilgrim Parent posted a link to this article about the image of the dancer that rotates clockwise or counter-clockwise, depending on whether your right brain or left brain is dominant, and I am utterly fascinated by it.

For the first few minutes I looked at it, I was sure it was a hoax, as I could only see the dancer moving clockwise.  Then I read the rest of the article, examined the list of traits that it indicated were prominent for clockwise (right-brain-dominant) viewers, thought about it — and lo and behold, as I thought about it logically, the dancer appeared to change rotation to counter-clockwise, indicating dominance of the left brain at that time instead.  The left brain controls … logic.

This is so totally cool.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with my narrative or what I usually write about here.  It’s just cool.

Responses

Fascinating. She’s clearly going clockwise and there was nothing I could do to see her go the other way.

I swear for a while I thought I saw her go counter-clockwise, but all I can see now is clockwise. Ahhh! Driving me nuts.

all i can see is clockwise too. tried to focus and got kind of dizzy.

tried it on Dave; he also saw clockwise first but then she turned on him. or for him.

funny - most “right/left brain” tests i’ve done leave me close to the middle, but this one left me completely logicless.

cool!

I love that dancer too, she turned the opposite direction for me too - after I looked back at the article and started trying to think it thru. Very cool.

I’ve seen it recently and have her linked as a “toy” on my website. I don’t know how it could be valid, yet when I first saw it I was vividly imagining something I’d remembered and she was circling clockwise and the minute I started reading the instructions, out of the corner of my eye she switched to counter-clockwise. Hmmm.

I saw this a few weeks ago and also found it fascinating. I found if I stared at the feet I could make her go the other way. My husband (mathematician) actually had a hard time doing it but finally made it work for him.

I thought this was very neat. I could only see it clockwise at first, but if I look only at the shadow at the bottom and “will” it to reverse, it usually does and then I can look up at the dancer. I am going to read more about this to see how/why it works. Thanks!

Clockwise to start. And as I was reading the left brain traits, corner of my eye I saw her switch.

And now, no matter what, she goes counter clockwise.

Of course, 99% of the time I see impact craters on Mars as mesas! But at least I can WILL those to flip!

How cool! Thanks to the PP who mentioned only looking at the shadow at the bottom. I could not get her to switch to counter clockwise until I tried that. And I’m supposed to be a computer programmer! (I guess this SAHM thing has totally taken me over. Ha!)

I’m wired opposite… She starts counterclockwise for me… so I start reading the RT Brain thing and she flips to clockwise… opposite the other readers. Interesting.

I can’t see anything but clockwise. And I’ve always thought that I’m a logical left brain type. It’s fascinating though. I got my whole office riled up one day with this.

For me, she goes back and forth. I can’t figure out how or why, but she switches every few rotations.

SHe’s going clockwise to me but counter clockwise to my son. I can’t figure out how to get her to chance directions. SOmeone said watch the shadow. WIll have to do that.

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