This is not a simple video of a spinning dancer, but an unique optical illusion that plays with your brain’s visual perception – some see her spinning clockwise, counterclockwise or even switching between the two.
The optical illusion was created by the Japanese Flash designer Nobuyuki Kayahara in 2003 and for many years, was used to determine whether people are right-brain (creative) or left-brain (logical) dominant. And apparently, people with high IQs can see the figure spinning in both directions. But recent studies and opinions indicate otherwise:
Paul Spencer with Tonic contacted Arthur Shapiro and Niko Troje, a pair of scientists who dissect Kayahara’s spinning girl in the forthcoming Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions, to understand the truth behind this theory.
‘That’s just gibberish,’ Shapiro, a computer science professor at American University in Washington D.C. and creator of the color wagon wheel illusion, told Spencer.
He explains that there is are much more complex reasons behind why we see her spinning in different directions. The duo explains that this ballerina is deemed a reversible image in the class of optical illusions, meaning, even though she spins, she displays ‘similarities to other static illusions’ – like the Necker cube. Just like the spinning dancer, the Necker cube can be viewed in two ways: either the lower right panel is in the front or people see it placed in the back.
Reversible images like the cube and dancer change at a moment’s notice because they can be viewed in more than one way, explained Troje, director for BioMotion Lab at Queens University. And the reason for the uncertainty is because these kinds of optical illusions do not reveal any clues about the image’s depth to help us make sense of it.
Simply put, When images aren’t clear, your brain takes the initiative to fill in the gaps where information is missing.
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