I just balanced my checkbook and then played spider solitaire on my computer. I went back to the image and it is now rotating counter-clockwise. Very interesting!

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I saw this a couple days ago, then looked again today. No matter what I do I can not make her go CCW. I only see CW. For what it's worth, I'm VERY right brained, right handed and I skate CCW but can do some turns better CW and half jumps and a one foot spin CW (no whole jumps, no fancy spins though).

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When the page first loaded all I saw was the whole image going clockwise several times. I had to focus a lot to get it going CCW but noticed that it went CCW especially after reading and typing!! Also noticed it going CCW when part of the image was covered up and i was typing in another window.

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yeah..... it's weird. She only has 1 right shoulder and 1 right leg. The right leg is the free leg. And her head is tilted toward her right shoulder. Even when I set this gif to slow motion, the picture .... slow frame by slow frame is indicating that she is rotating clockwise.

I am CCW left handed person, well I do almost everything right handed except writing.

At first I could only see CCW, then she flipped to CW and back again. I discovered focussing on her standing leg heel as it went up and down makes it possible to change her direction. After a couple of minutes, I can now make her change direction at will - though the change doesn't happen instantaneously. Weird, but watching the heel makes a difference.

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oh gee...... ok, I finally managed to trick myself into seeing her spin counter-clockwise!! This is a freaky kind of gif file. And I tested it on the original gif file that I saved earlier....the one where I was absolutely certain that she spins clockwise.

But even for that original saved file, she appears to be spinning anti-clockwise with her free leg being the left leg and her head is tilted toward her left shoulder.

Originally, I was only seeing her spin clockwise, but I then decided to try something. I set up the web page so that I could see the gif picture, with the girl spinning around. And then I focused my eyes on the text on the web page that says

"Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it." etc....

not reading the text at all, but just focusing on it, while still being able to see the spinning girl out the corner of my eyes. And then I kept blinking my eyes repeatedly and rapidly, at various rates. But don't do soft blinks.....do HARD blinks where you shut your eyes really tightly before opening them.......and keep doing this......repeatedly, like at rates of every half a second. Make sure to do hard blinks. If nothing is happening for a long time, then just vary the rate a bit, eg....blink a bit faster (still using hard blinks), or blink a bit slower - always focusing on the text and the gif picture at the same time.

And to my surprise, I started seeing a tiny bit of anti-clockwise rotation. It was a start. So I kept doing the same thing and then, eventually to my huge surprise I could only see her spinning anti-clockwise without needing to blink anymore, even when I was only focusing on the gif picture itself. I kept looking at different things and then looking back at the gif picture, and still spinning anti-clockwise. But now, after a long time of not looking at the picture, she's gone back to spinning clockwise again.

This brain illusion thing is very cool indeed.

I just read flo's post on the other thread about this. And wow, it worked for me, too! Looking at the whole picture, she turns CW; but if I read the text and only see the picture out of the corner of my eye, she turns CCW.

Wow this is trippy! But it was counter clockwise for me. Which is also the way i spin and jump. My coach and i have experimented with spinning clockwise and I could actually do a scratch spin better than CCW but had difficulty going into it because my right side does not open up as much as my left. Plus it felt wierd to spin that direction. I refused to try jumping clockwise because I was afraid it would throw off my CCW jumps, because they are tempremental!

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Okay I've got something to add more as well, I've got this proggy: Animation Shop (by Jasc software) on my computer and I opened the .gif file in it... Now, if I look frame by frame at the images, I see her moving clockwise too. But if I look at the animation again, she's still going counter-clockwise.

Take a look at the list of frames.

Focus here on her standing on the RIGHT leg, and she's spinning ccw:



Focus here on her standing on the LEFT leg, and she's spinning cw:



The trick is that when CW-seeing people see her as-if with the back to them, to CCW-seeing people she's front faced to them, and vice versa. This would never work with a colored to nature image.

Late to the game but I see her spinning counter clockwise, I however spin clockwise. Hmmmmmmm

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I just came up with a way that works for me to make the girl spin in whichever way I choose. I sit with one ear 'almost' facing the computer screen, so that the spinning skater is 'just' visible through the corner of ONE of my eyes only. So basically, sit almost side-on to the computer monitor.

I then set up a vague mental picture (in my mind) of a rotating thing that spins in the same plane as the girl's feet in the gif picture, and my mental spinning thing spins in whichever direction I choose, and interestingly, once I get the imaginary mental picture in my mind, the real picture that I just have visible through the corner of my eye will eventually spin in the same direction too. It looks like the illusion thing really is related to brain function. Very amazing stuff.

So how does it work, then?

(I have yet to attempt to take the gif to pieces to have a look ... )

umm isn't she standing on her LEFT leg here? and in the pic below.

EDIT: OMG!!! i got it. yup. i see what you mean...

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having just looked at the pictures, i've just sussed how it's working.
look at the first two images Sessy posted and you'll see she starts on one leg in one frame and is then on the other leg in the next frame. So basically we're all either tuning into the clockwise frames or the anti-clockwise frames and it's just tricking our brains to tune into the other half of the information.
I've not gone back to see if i can actually get my brain to do that, but at least I understand what it's doing.
Very clever.

That is so cool. No matter how hard I look at it, I only see clockwise. My kids looked at it and first saw clockwise, but then both saw it change to anti-clockwise at the same time. I always thought of myself as a left-brained person (I work in a scientifice field), but according to this, I am solidly right-brained. I am right-handed but a CW skater.

No, you think you see it, but it's just your brain.

There's two points in the gif image at which it doesn't add up, but you only see 1 depending on whether you're right-brained or left-brained, and your brain just ignores it. It's where you see the image kind of slow down.

Here's a GIF picture in inverted colors, in which I tried to show what a left-brained and right-brained person sees in the same image, at the very same time index! I drew in both arms and tried to give her a front and back. I hope you see it now.



Everything else you see, is what your brain fills in for you. Our brain is specifically tailored to recognize faces and humans and animals - that's how come shapeless clouds look like something to you, which another person might not see at all until you tell them what it's supposed to look like.

For the record: even knowing how this works I still can't see her rotating clockwise in the animation, only in the pictures and only focussing hard on it. Neither did it work to take a look at it after some social activity, or from the corner of the eye.

N.B. 2: It's impossible to spin the way she does on ice.

oh wow, I see

thanks for explaining!

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OMG!!!

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That's even weirder. If I look at both images, the one on the left is going clockwise, and the one on the right is going anti-clockwise. If I cover the one on the right with my hand, the left one continues going clockwise (and only clockwise). If I cover the one on the left, the one on the right still goes anti-clockwise, but periodically turns clockwise for half a rev or so.

Fiona

I reversed the animation; the one on the left is the orginal.

Now you can use both sides of your brain!!

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Oh, wow, is that bizarre. Because, for the first time, the one on the left (the original) went CCW for me. On first look, it was quite obviously still CW, and the right, reverse image was CCW, but then the left image started going CCW too.


Holy cow.



Sessy, thanks for drawing that out--that makes perfect sense. In your first row, though--the arm you've drawn in (what would be her left arm)...from frame one to frame two, wouldn't the arm actually have to change position to make the position in the second frame? I think that's why I couldn't see it go the other direction--my brain said "no, the arm doesn't move, therefore it's not her left arm I can't see, it's her right"...yadda yadda yadda.

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hahahaha!! Nice !! That'll teach our brains! hehe

Originally, in your double pic, with one picture reversed, I saw both spinning clockwise, except that they were out of phase ...by maybe 180 degrees. But both spun clockwise.

But later, I tried to trick my brain to make them spin in different direction, and then I saw 1 spin clockwise while the other spinning anticlockwise hehe

Focus on her shadow to switch rotation, works for me everytime.

You might be able to trick your brain by leaving the spinning gif image on your computer. Then fire up another movie picture ....eg get a movie of yourself or somebody from the internet doing a clockwise spin....and keep looking at the clip of the real person doing a clockwise spin for some time.....then look at the illusion gif picture again. Not sure if that will work.

Otherwise, you have to look away from the illusion picture, and actually try to 'imagine' the picture in your mind of the skater spinning clockwise, like visualizing the legs in particular rotating clockwise. That will help conditioning the brain ....to set it up. Then look at the illusion.

Also, as you're trying to form a visual image in your mind of the skater spinning in a clockwise direction, you can even try to help coax your brain along by very very slowly rolling your head (just slightly only) in clockwise direction....and at the same time trying to imagine the skater going clockwise...a visual image in the mind. Then try to look at the illusion picture once you're ready.

Or....just have the illusion picture in the corner of your eye so that you can 'only' just see it ...just. And then try to form a image in your mind of the skater with her legs/feet going in a clockwise direction. Keep trying to imagine that for a fair bit of time. Then once you're ready, view the illusion picture again. It might not work at first, but after a few tries you might be able to get it.