Supposed Right brain vs Left brain test

[jack]

The link going around is here, from an Australian newspaper. The image shows a silhouette of a dancer rotating in the air. Is it rotating clockwise or anticlockwise?

People seem to see it one way or the other, though most people can swap the way they see it. The paper says it depends on being right-brained or left-brained. There are some analyses floating about from before the paper made the link, but I can't find anything definitive.

Logically, the silhouette *ought* to be perceivable either way -- if there are insufficient depth cues, and you cover up the shadow, it ought to be front-back symmetric. But to me it definitely *looks* clockwise[1].

Can anyone tell if there's anything special about the image? Does anyone know if right/left-brain-ness really has any bearing?

[1] Bonus points for saying "from the top or the bottom". From the top, please.

ETA: No-one finds any support that this has anything to do with left/right brains, that seems to have appeared with the news article. So not necessarily false, but doubtful, given that it has no source.

Comments

[simont]

I'd never heard of indigo children before seeing this post, and frankly I'm not sure I don't wish I still hadn't. Good grief.

I'm particularly mindboggled by this quotation in the Wikipedia entry:

"I'm an avatar," Dusk said. "I can recognize the four elements of earth, wind, water and fire. The next avatar won't come for 100 years."

I have a strange mental image of Dusk looking at a pile of soil and saying "There, that's earth!", and for some reason believing that he's the only person in 100 years capable of telling that.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of indigo children before seeing this post, and frankly I'm not sure I don't wish I still hadn't. Good grief.

Looking at that definition, I think I must have been an indigo child. Fortunately, I think I've mostly grown out of it.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

*giggle* I'm sorry to have brought it up! But now you have something else to think about those wicked little children whose parents let them run a-havocking everywhere, don't you?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Me neither, for that matter, but when I looked at my comment notifications there was an ad about it :O I'm just too used to crazy ideas. Though I'm not sure if this is more about annoying precocious children which was extended to imply psychic powers, or vice versa. I don't think I want to know.