Left or right dominant?
neuroscience clued me in to this and I thought it was too interesting not to share.
Look at the dancer.
Do you see her spinning clockwise, or counterclockwise?
When I look at her, I almost always see her spinning clockwise--something that surprises me, since I like to consider myself to be a highly logical and analytical person. It's very hard for me to make her spin the opposite direction. Interestingly enough, though, the left side of my body is eeeeeeeeeever so slightly larger than my right side, which is unusual since I am right handed and it's normally individuals' dominant side that is larger.
^^ That said, as far as I can tell, there is absolutely no scientific basis for the article's claims. But it is really kinda cool to look at.
EDIT: Since people's brains are apparently breaking . . . XD;; The dancer's image can flip, but it's not because the image itself is changing. The image is a plain old .gif, and I've counted her rotations when she switches direction for me; they're always at irregular intervals. So it's not the picture that makes the image switch--it's you. The best explanation I've seen for it is that it's a perception rivalry task--basically an image that varies according to your perception, as dictated by which hemisphere is more active. If you're deeply curious about hemi-dominant perception (and a huge nerd like me, who reads crap like this during down time at work), Google Scholar split-brain research. ^^ I think the article is basing the 'that means this is your dominant hemisphere!' claim on the statistical chance that, when you look at the image, the hemisphere that does a greater percentage of your conscious mental processing will be the one that is active. That's purely a roll of the dice, though, as there are no control conditions. That could be why--for a some people--reading the text will make the image switch in your periphery since language processing is pretty left-brain intensive. For those who can't make the image switch at all, it also raises a few interesting questions as well.
Look at the dancer.
Do you see her spinning clockwise, or counterclockwise?
When I look at her, I almost always see her spinning clockwise--something that surprises me, since I like to consider myself to be a highly logical and analytical person. It's very hard for me to make her spin the opposite direction. Interestingly enough, though, the left side of my body is eeeeeeeeeever so slightly larger than my right side, which is unusual since I am right handed and it's normally individuals' dominant side that is larger.
^^ That said, as far as I can tell, there is absolutely no scientific basis for the article's claims. But it is really kinda cool to look at.
EDIT: Since people's brains are apparently breaking . . . XD;; The dancer's image can flip, but it's not because the image itself is changing. The image is a plain old .gif, and I've counted her rotations when she switches direction for me; they're always at irregular intervals. So it's not the picture that makes the image switch--it's you. The best explanation I've seen for it is that it's a perception rivalry task--basically an image that varies according to your perception, as dictated by which hemisphere is more active. If you're deeply curious about hemi-dominant perception (and a huge nerd like me, who reads crap like this during down time at work), Google Scholar split-brain research. ^^ I think the article is basing the 'that means this is your dominant hemisphere!' claim on the statistical chance that, when you look at the image, the hemisphere that does a greater percentage of your conscious mental processing will be the one that is active. That's purely a roll of the dice, though, as there are no control conditions. That could be why--for a some people--reading the text will make the image switch in your periphery since language processing is pretty left-brain intensive. For those who can't make the image switch at all, it also raises a few interesting questions as well.