Please explain this optical illusion to me?

hello_kitteh · 11 months

This is an example of the perceptual concept of obstruction. Your brain doesn't know how to interpret the middle one without some extra information, so it just picks a direction. For the images on the left and right side, your perception of her direction is based on which leg (or rather which line) is being obstructed by the other.

so-n_nari- · 11 months

I just cross my eyes, and have 4 colorful women dancing for my pleasure.

homebrewtj · 11 months

Without context, you can't tell if when the middle leg goes left it's in front or in back if her. Thus your eyes/brain makes that assumption and picks one.

Karythne · 11 months

well, obviously....

r0bb3d · 11 months

So far, i got this:

woman in left panel is always rotating clockwise
woman in right panel is always rotating counter clockwise
woman in middle is switching depending on how/when you look

How does it work? Am I stupid? :)

Obliviousobi · 11 months

If you watch her head they all turn the same direction.

Watch the legs so the images are going different directions
Start watching only the heads and blink
????
All the images are rotating the same way

Ikinhaszkarmakplx · 11 months

Depending where you look (left/right), the middle one will move according to where you looked last.

upgrayedd08 · 11 months

I think it depends on what side of your brain you use predominantly. I see the girl spinning left to right naturally, but if I'm reading something and look at it, it looks right to left.

gmsone · 11 months

It alternates for me. It swings left, then right, then left, then right etc..

ARCHA1C · 11 months

It has nipples

pandaclawz · 10 months

This is a 2D image. There is no rotation.

[deleted] · 10 months

If I stare at this thing long enough I end up on the verge of bursting into tears

PapaBee · 11 months

The association of colors to sides was the illusion here. If you noticed. From the first picture, your brain picked up on the schema that blue has legs up, red has leg down. Look at the arms, they flipped at the last picture. What was originally red is now blue. Thus the illusion.

SeanMyklKing · 11 months

Thanks. Now I'm gonna die angry and confused. Still.

GordoFreeman · 11 months

If you look at the image on the left, all of the figures will spin her way, if you look at the one on the right, all figures spin her way.

Ninjatertl · 11 months

it is called god-damned black magic!

filya · 11 months

The illusion is just the center one. The adjoining ones are just to help you see how the center one can rotate clock/anticlock wise.

antipode · 11 months

As I see it, there really is only ONE real direction the silhouette is turning. Check out the reflection on the floor and ignore the model entirely - you can clearly see one foot rotating and the other making counter-clockwise passes around it. For that reason, I'd say the image on the right is the "correct" one. The reflection and the spinning model in the left image simply don't match. Without the reflection I think this image would be much more effective - but it's still an excellent illusion that can definitely make your brain flip-flop like crazy.

gmnitsua · 11 months

Some people claim that this is an example of left brain vs. right brain perception. Depending on which direction you see the girl in the middle spinning correlates to which side of your brain is more dominant at the time. But other articles argue that that is nonsense and that it is merely an illusion based on how our perceptions developed in our 3 dimensional reality. Reading.

GremZealot · 10 months

If you look at the body position when the front is facing the camera, you'll notice that they are not the same.

It's the same image mirrored with different colors.

ParallelParadox · 10 months

I think watching that almost gave me an anxiety attack.

skysurfer88 · 10 months

stare at the middle ones boobs for awhile and then it will look like there all rotating the same way, that is the best explanation i can give >:D

jesusonadinosaur · 10 months

I just got mind fucked

IMakeIce · 10 months

Challenge. Convince your brain that the downward pointing leg is spinning in clockwise, and that the rest of the body is spinning counter clockwise.

gtwy · 10 months

One on the right is different. The other two are moving in same direction. Stop gif for proof.

JustSomeLlama · 10 months

It's actually just turning some to the left, then to the right by the same amount, and it's made in a way that the left and right legs switch from being raised as it changes the direction it rotates. The left and right images are given lines to help trick you in to seeing it as making full rotations rather than only quarter rotations.

If you look at the reflection you can see that the lowered foot never really makes a full rotation, and the raised foot is part of the illusion, only going one direction regardless of which way it appears to be rotating. The point between the ends of it's rotation would be pointed away from our perspective.

Also, just a quick edit; The arms and legs do the same thing, at the left most and right most ends of it's rotation is when both the arms and legs switch the positioning of the left and right arms/legs.

This is just explaining what the image is doing of course, explaining anything more than that in terms of brain/study/science-y stuff that some people are mentioning is beyond me.

lil_britt08 · 11 months

When I crossed my eyes, the one in the middle dissapeared and they switched directions

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