I've tried everything, looking at just the shadow, looking at just the right foot, looking away at 90 degrees.....nothing changes. It's really interesting that so many people are viewing the same thing but see it in different ways.
A thoughtful person sent me this note. It adds an intriguing new twist.
>>I was so curious I looked it up- apparently she may be a pendulum- I was looking at the feet and the shadows for my cues- the upper body is just distraction :-) :
This is a simple trick, an optical illusion, not a brain structure or inclination test. Indeed, you can see the dancer spinning clockwise and counter-clockwise. This is because, she is not really fully rotating, she is just moving like a pendulum, like Gaurav and Andrew Carothers noticed (see above). People have said that they can see she switching direction at time intervals, or depending of what they think. Actually, the animated dancer switches direction every half turn. When the leg that is risen reaches an edge, it switches direction. Why we don’t realize this? Obviously, once our brain have “decided” which direction she is rotating, it tends to stick with that decision. So, Uri Kalish got it all: “The dancer’s leg is moving left, stops, right, stops etc. If on the split-second your eyes saw the image, the dancer’s leg was moving left - you would think that she was spinning clockwise. If it was moving right - you would think that she was spinning counter-clockwise. From that point, your brain had already decided which direction the dancer was spinning and it would be very difficult to change your mind without looking away. It is NOT about whether you are logic or artistic, but the exact split-second your eyes first saw the image.” Also, once we have decided which direction she is spinning, we tend to focus our attention on the upper part of the figure (especially men!). To notice the trick, you must look at the risen foot. Not a natural thing to do. So, that is: a nice trick, but just that!
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