Perceptual Flip-Flop
October 14th, 2007 by Vicki Baker
Which way is the dancer above spinning, clockwise or counter-clockwise? Or does she sometimes change direction? This optical illusion is getting a lot of hits over the past few days; I first encountered it on 3quarksdaily.com
My family spent several minutes staring at her last night, each of calling out at irregular intervals comments like “She just flipped!” of “I just saw her flip!” or “I made her flip!” according to our various perspectives.
So is the dancer just an optical illusion, or is she a test of whether you are “left-brained” or “right-brained”, as the link above presents it? Or is it a test of something else, perhaps of how long people will stare at her to try to to make her spin the other way if they don’t like the results of the test? Or perhaps, as one commenter on 3quarks suggested, it is a predictor of the viewer’s support for Hillary Clinton. If you can watch her change direction from left to right repeatedly without getting nauseated, you are more likely to support Clinton.
I don’t have Photoshop on this computer, so I will have to wait til tomorrow to waste valuable work time dissecting the animated gif.
October 14th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
And if the first thing you notice is that she has visible nipples, what does that say about you?
October 14th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
She turned only clockwise for me, no matter what strategy I employed—until I complimented her on her visible nipples, then she changed directions several times. What does that say about HER?
Truly, I finally saw her start flipping, but I can’t cause it to happen. It seems as though SHE is in charge. It’s a terrific optical illusion–the equal to any of these: http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=818
October 15th, 2007 at 12:12 am
OK. Now I can control her spin direction. I focus on the toes of her rotating foot. Is that foot in front of her body or behind it? You choose and her spin direction accommodates your choice. It’s not easy at first.
October 15th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
It’s just not happening. Yet…
But I can do those stereoscopic vision ones pretty well. Okay fine I’m an expert.
http://www.vision3d.com/sghidden/3ring.html
http://www.vision3d.com/sghidden/dino.html
http://www.vision3d.com/sghidden.html
October 15th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Okay I figured it out. I can control her.
Just look away from the screen so that you can only see her in your *peripheral* vision. I guess there is just too much stimulus when looking directly at the image, and I can’t concentrate on flipping. When I look 90 degrees to the side, it looks more like just a rotating stick figure, which can easily spin either way.
October 16th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Clockwise…
October 16th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Oh my God, she does flip?!
October 16th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Oh my God, she does flip?! Ben was right.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Vicki, please help me out. I don’t get it. I watch her and she just flips back and forth occasionally. It doesn’t look like an optical illusion at all–it happens no matter how I look at her or how I focus or what I do.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:05 am
To Claire,
I was having the same problem, and then I looked at the foot shadows. She goes up and down on one foot, and the shadow of the raised foot is always to the left of the screen. If I focus on her raised arm, she doesn’t change, but if I focus on her feet or her legs, I can make her switch back and forth. It is pretty cool now that I am able to see it.