Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

left-right_brain.gif
From The Daily Telegraph

According to this article, If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Right brain (creative): Making intuitive leaps to answer based on insights and perception; relate to emotions

Left brain (logical): Process information in analytical, rational, logical and sequential way.

Just awhile ago, my mom and I were arguing whether she was turning anti-clockwise or clockwise. Sometimes we both saw it changed direction together. But most of the times, we each saw it going in different direction. I guess our brains must have randomly switched between left and right.

She said it was the picture which did the trick. Then I had to go a big round to explain how .gif worked and it was NOT because it was made to change direction every n seconds.

I guess you know she is a right brainer now. But guess which brain am I? :)

However, I do feel that this picture is just another optical illusion. How do our perceptions (towards this picture) determine if we are a left or right brainer?

This is a 2-dimentional picture and our brains ‘assume’ that we are looking at 3-dimentional image and hence, we could ‘sense’ direction. The shadow also helps to create the ’3D’ illusion.

If you look closely, it is just a 2D image which shifts back and forth to create an illusion.

Awhile ago, I studied about students’ learning styles (visual learner, hands-on etc), also based on the dominance of left/right brain. Interestingly, teachers with left/right brains do affect their teaching styles.

Left brain teacher: Prefer lecture and discussion; research and writing; prefer quiet and structured classroom.

Right brain teacher: Prefer hands-on activities; likes to incorporate art, visuals, sounds into their lessons; like active and noisy classroom; messy desk with books scattered all over.

Read the full article here.

So, what brainer are you? In which direction do you think the dancer is going?

Posted under Random ramblings | [12] Comments