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[personal profile] 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.

Date: 2007-10-16 04:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cornute.livejournal.com
"AIUI the brain is asymmetric, but I don't know to what extent using that to categorise people is valid, if at all."

That's my understanding as well-- I'm not sure how, without some sophisticated medical tech, one could tell whether a person was using their left hemisphere or right predominantly at all!