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The dancer in this optical illusion can be seen spinning clockwise or counterclockwise depending on the viewer’s perspective. Some say that the one you see is indicative of which side of your brain is dominant. I saw the dancer spinning clockwise, and it took me a while to get the direction to flip. The key to getting the picture to flip is focusing on the center foot. Once you see the rotation of the foot change the rest of the picture will follow.

The NYT article below discredits the theory that the picture can indicate whether you are right-brained and creative, or left-brained and logical. What do you think?

The Truth About the Spinning Dancer

A popular e-mail going around features a spinning dancer that has been touted as a test of whether you are right-brained and creative or left-brained and logical. If you see the dancer spinning clockwise, the story goes, you are using more of your right brain, and if you see it moving counterclockwise, you are more of a left-brained person.

Clockwise or counterclockwise?But while the dancer does indeed reflect the brain savvy of its creator, Japanese Web designer Nobuyuki Kayahara, it is not a brain test. Instead, it is simply an optical illusion called a reversible, or ambiguous, image. Images like this one have been long studied by scientists to learn more about how vision works.

(Via New York Time, Well Blog, Tara Parker-Pope on Health.)