October 12, 2007 3:21 PM PDT
Clockwise or counterclockwise?
Which way is she spinning?
(Credit: Australia Sun Herald)OK, so this is not strictly tech-related, but it is a cool way to count down the remaining minutes to the weekend. Look at the dancer and decide which way she's spinning.
Got it?
If you think she's going clockwise, you're apparently right-brain dominant (imaginative, philosophical, touchy-feely, impetuous); if you see her going counter-clockwise, you're left-brain dominant (logical, practical, detail-oriented, safe).
If, like us, you are able to alternate views to see her going in both directions, then you're just a plain old genius.
Source: Australia Herald Sun
could possibly be spinning counterclockwise.
is it supposed to look like something totaly different?
I guess the theory is which frame you start with, and how you turn it into an animation in your bran depends on how you are thinking.
It is a creative play on angles and frames the gets you to decide which way she is spinning, and it changes what ?leg? looks like it is up. What is happening is the leg in the middle of the image is staying centered, and the other ?leg? crosses over it at a key point. The way the ?body? lined up you could see the swinging leg as either the right or left leg.
As for the shadow, it moves from the right of the frame to the left. Depending on how you see the illusion you see the shadow passing over the ?front? of the other legs shadow? or you see the leg spin ?behind? the other leg. In reality there is no front or back, it is just a 2d image, but your brain is stitching it together to form a ?video?
Pretty cool illusion at first I was like ?how the hell can it change direction. But then I looked at the image differentially and I could see how the image was made up and change how I put the image?s together in my mind.
I can see the image spin in either direction, or I can even look at it as if she was bouncing back and fourth. (you have to ignore the shadow though)
The shadow being cut off like that on the bottom of the screen, and how everything lines up all plays a factor in the illusion.
I have put a video online which shows a video of the dancer frame by frame. I have also gone through it and paused it on the 'ambiguous' frames, where the dancer could be seen as facing forwards OR facing backwards.
Here is the video's URL: http://sapvow.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p0qfWNMEbazFAC93NWNjCXZh8qYV0sagYJfF6TowzUrVYG9JaqhoeMKAp2qF9l6XRZhH0egn-D1aoyr3oNv5eIg/Dancer%20Explanation.avi