11.05.2007

Left Brain/Right Brain

Wow, we have been quite delinquent lately with the blogging, mostly due to busyness at work. I'm getting ready to finally deliver our telescope to NASA (I get to fly out on my birthday, woo hoo) and Kate has been doing field work in Salinas. But in between all of this activity we've had a fun visit with Frank, who came down from Seattle for the Washington-Stanford football game. Maybe you'll get a blog about that later...

Also, I recently got this via email from my sister, by way of a family friend. Click on the image for the real test.


Which way do you see the dancer/nudist rotating? Clockwise or counterclockwise? According to the website that published this:

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

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

I definitely see her spinning clockwise by default, but if I block everything from the ankles up, I can make her feet rotate the other way, and then see the whole picture that way when I scroll back up. Although I'm confused by the results, as I would say I'm a pretty left-brained person. But clockwise pretty consistently wins out for me. How about you? Here's a list of general left/right brained characteristics, there's a longer one at the link above.

Left Brained:
  • Logical
  • Sequential
  • Rational
  • Analytical
  • Objective
  • Looks at parts
Right Brained:
  • Random
  • Intuitive
  • Holistic
  • Synthesizing
  • Subjective
  • Looks at wholes

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well it is clearly counter-clockwise to me (who says anti-clockwise, anyway?)! In fact, I can't come up with any way to make it look clockwise yet, so I must be as left-brained as they come.

Fitting, as I am always the more logical and rational one in this marriage. Maybe I could give you some pointers on that sometime, Tom...

Anonymous said...

She's *totally* going clockwise, reports the recently returned curler up in Canadia...

Anonymous said...

And, um, I don't think any readers who don't know Frank are going to get a sense of him from that ridiculously small thumbnail.

Andrew said...

I'm definitely clockwise. And spent about a minute trying to make it go the other way before giving up. That definitely goes against what I would have expected given the descriptions so I'm not conviced by the whole left brain right brain thing...

Anonymous said...

And oh goodness. I just opened it up this morning and she's totally going anti-clockwise without a hint of clockwise, whereas last night I couldn't even come close to conceiving her going anti-clockwise.

I think there are two different moving images which randomly load, one of which goes clockwise and the other going anti-clockwise.

It's a total fraud.

Anonymous said...

No. Forget the last comment. I just got her to switch directions while watching. Pretty cool.

Anonymous said...

Your parents are total clockwise kinda people, Tom, though I dont believe that makes Dad right-brained! Interesting how many folks were waiting around for your next blog entry, huh?
Mom

Sarah said...

Absolutely clockwise. But I don't feel like I'm a right-brained sort of person.... oh well! Very cool.

Steve said...

I saw anticlockwise at first, was able to force myself to see clockwise by staring at the toes and trying to think of it differently.

Now I'm stuck on clockwise.

Anonymous said...

I'm about as left-brained as they come, but she 'naturally' spins clockwise for me. Following Tom's suggestion, though, I could focus on the pivot foot and force her to change direction. And then couldn't make her go back unless I looked away and started over. Very cool.
(Anti-clockwise is Britishspeak)
-2nd parental unit on the Cape

Anonymous said...

So try this for right brained/left brained...