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The spinning girl is very common illusion. If you have never come across such a thing, I bring to you: The Spinning Girl (echos).

As the name suggests, it is a GIF image of a girl spinning. But take a look at it. What do you see? Is she’s spinning in the anti-clockwise direction for you? I always see her going anti-clockwise. If you keep staring, she might suddenly change the direction. It isn’t very easy to visualize for everyone. One method works for me always (described below). During the first few tries you might have trouble getting a hang of it. Soon it will be a breeze to make her spin in the direction you like.

The method:

1. For Anti-clockwise direction – If she is already doing it, skip to the 2nd point. Otherwise, look away from the monitor preferably on the right side of your monitor. Now using your peripheral vision concentrate on the image and think of it spinning in the anti-clockwise direction. Don’t look directly. Now when she starts doing that slowly change from peripheral to direct vision. Done. If it doesn’t work, try shifting from peripheral to direct vision suddenly.

2. For Clockwise direction - If she is already doing it, skip to the 1st point. Otherwise, scroll down till the point where you see only the lowest part of the image (the end of her shadow). Her shadow must have already started to spin in the clockwise direction. Concentrate if it is not happening. When it starts happening, keep staring and concentrating on the shadow and very steadily start scrolling up. Now slowly start focusing on the girl. She’ll be doing clockwise circles.

With enough practice and two of these images kept side by side, you’ll be able to see both directions at the same time. This will take time.

note: Since people everywhere are fascinated by brain hacks and optical illusions, online articles claim it as a test to find if you are right or left brain do it to gather attention. It makes no sense. It is a plain optical illusion based on how your visual cortex sees it. It has nothing to do with hemispherical dominance.

Related articles

• Peripheral vision (marciokenobi.wordpress.com)
• That Was Hard (dna100.blogspot.com)