Can You Switch Your Brain's Perception? Left vs. Right Brain Video Experiment

In summary: Not a statement.In summary, when someone switches between seeing her turn either way at will without shifting their gaze, their IQ is above 160 … which is almost at genius level!
  • #1
Null_
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http://www.readnrock.com/?p=38

It's probably been posted before, but I still find it interesting. I can easily switch between the two, but I saw it going clockwise first. I don't believe that this proves my iq is over 160 (I don't believe in iq tests anyway...)

I'm going into engineering...I would assume most physics/engineers/mathematicians are left brained. Are their any studies on this?
 
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  • #2
I had no problems switching but my IQ is certainly NOT 160...
 
  • #3
I can only see her going clockwise while looking at her, but when I look down to read something, I can see her going the other way in my peripheral vision.

The reason I think I see her spinning clockwise is because of how I typically see dancers spin. Right leg out, they're spinning clockwise. Left leg out, they're spinning counter-clockwise.
I'm always wary of simple "left brain, right brain" explanations for why you see something a certain way.
If you can switch between seeing her turn either way at will without shifting your gaze, your IQ is above 160 … which is almost at genius level!
I also like how they can assign an intelligence number to you based on your ability to switch her direction of spin. And it almost makes you a genius to boot.
 
  • #4
Well, this is the internet so all of our IQs are well into the 200s.
 
  • #5
leroyjenkens, when I see her switch directions, the leg that she is spinning on switches as well.
 
  • #6
All I had to do to make her switch directions was to focus on the least complex part - the foot. Just imagined it spinning the other way, and sure, the rest of the body followed. My brain seems to prefer clockwise.

Feels nice to know a random internet site considers me a genius, too.But... Shouldn't her directions then depend on which part in your field of vision she is in?

After a minute or two of training, I can easily switch between directions at will. You just need to remember which way the parts go in 3D space.
 
  • #7
Null_ said:
leroyjenkens, when I see her switch directions, the leg that she is spinning on switches as well.

No matter which way she spins, she's still spinning on her left leg with her right leg sticking out. If you only had a side view of her, you couldn't tell which leg it is. But since you have a front and back view as well, you see that it's the right leg sticking out. That can't change.
 
  • #8
When she's spinning counterclockwise, it sure looks to me as if her right foot is on the ground and the left is sticking out, then the opposite in the clockwise direction.
 
  • #9
This is really frustrating. I can see it both ways, but cannot consciously control it. I blink and it switches. Very odd.

EDIT: actually I believe there is a glitch in the video and it actually changes orientation at a specific interval.
 
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  • #10
What a bummer, I have difficulty with this. Due to my knowledge of maths, however, I know that not seeing the switch does not imply my IQ is less than 160 :) The converse need not be true!
 
  • #11
Null_ said:
I'm going into engineering...I would assume most physics/engineers/mathematicians are left brained. Are their any studies on this?
Everyone is left brained. Everything you think you are, all the things you tell yourself about yourself and the world, it all happens in the left hemisphere, the language hemisphere.

Your right hemisphere can't speak and does not even know your name.

This book by a woman who had most of her left hemisphere functions stripped away by a brain bleed is one of the most fascinating I've read about the left-right brain dichotomy:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430300612/?tag=pfamazon01-20

On the morning of December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours. As the damaged left side of her brain--the rational, grounded, detail- and time-oriented side--swung in and out of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realties: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace; and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized Jill was having a stroke, and enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely.
 
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  • #12
zoobyshoe said:
Everyone is left brained. Everything you think you are, all the things you tell yourself about yourself and the world, it all happens in the left hemisphere, the language hemisphere.

Your right hemisphere can't speak and does not even know your name.

This is not true. This is greatly oversimplified and far too black and white. It is a question of dominance, not iron-fisted rule.
 
  • #13
DaveC426913 said:
This is not true. This is greatly oversimplified and far too black and white. It is a question of dominance, not iron-fisted rule.
I thought we knew exactly which regions of the brain are involved in different basic elements of language, mainly from studies of many people with small lesions in different parts of their brains. Have you read Pinker's book on language?
 
  • #14
DaveC426913 said:
This is not true. This is greatly oversimplified and far too black and white. It is a question of dominance, not iron-fisted rule.
Why do people become right brain dominant for language, Dave?
 
  • #15
My middle brain just informed me she is not wearing any clothe :redface:
 
  • #16
zoobyshoe said:
Everyone is left brained. Everything you think you are, all the things you tell yourself about yourself and the world, it all happens in the left hemisphere, the language hemisphere.

Your right hemisphere can't speak and does not even know your name.

This book by a woman who had most of her left hemisphere functions stripped away by a brain bleed is one of the most fascinating I've read about the left-right brain dichotomy:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430300612/?tag=pfamazon01-20

but i have extreme difficulty remembering names. even common words are sometimes difficult for me to recall. could it be that i am actually right-brain dominant?

as for the lady, i was actually able to flip her back the other direction this time. i have no idea how, it usually doesn't happen. she seemed to just pause for a fraction, then went the other way. i also can't help but notice that she's naked. can anyone see her with clothes?

edit: oh, i see cronxeh has my same masculine brain problem
 
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  • #17
Proton Soup said:
but i have extreme difficulty remembering names. even common words are sometimes difficult for me to recall. could it be that i am actually right-brain dominant?

as for the lady, i was actually able to flip her back the other direction this time. i have no idea how, it usually doesn't happen. she seemed to just pause for a fraction, then went the other way. i also can't help but notice that she's naked. can anyone see her with clothes?

edit: oh, i see cronxeh has my same masculine brain problem

I was actually able to slow her down at one point. Switching directions between counter and clockwise rotations is easy if you look between her leg and shadow. Unfortunately I can't do it on the whim because once I believe she is rotating one way, I see patterns that confirm that she is indeeed rotation in that direction.
 
  • #18
cesiumfrog said:
I thought we knew exactly which regions of the brain are involved in different basic elements of language, mainly from studies of many people with small lesions in different parts of their brains. Have you read Pinker's book on language?
Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area, both in the left hemisphere, are crucial to understanding and producing speech, including internal speech (thinking).
 
  • #19
I thought that the old "right brained/left brained" thing was more or less a myth?

Here is the gif
[URL]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/thestatutoryape/1265424820731.gif[/URL]

It does not switch around on you on its own. I was able to get my perception of its motion to switch by focusing on the extended leg and telling myself it was moving the other way.
 
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  • #20
I just look away for a second and look back and she's changed directions.
 
  • #21
TheStatutoryApe said:
I thought that the old "right brained/left brained" thing was more or less a myth?
There's a huge difference between the hemispheres. The "myth" was that the left was 'logical' and the right 'intuitive, creative'.
 
  • #22
zoobyshoe said:
There's a huge difference between the hemispheres. The "myth" was that the left was 'logical' and the right 'intuitive, creative'.

That was more or less my meaning. I know that there are parts of the brain responsible for certain activity, I only meant the idea that there are "left brained/right brained" people.
 
  • #23
TheStatutoryApe said:
That was more or less my meaning. I know that there are parts of the brain responsible for certain activity, I only meant the idea that there are "left brained/right brained" people.
No, that whole left/right brain personality thing was a myth. What's ironic is how all the creative types who called themselves "right-brained" were speaking from the left hemisphere.
 
  • #24
cesiumfrog said:
I thought we knew exactly which regions of the brain are involved in different basic elements of language, mainly from studies of many people with small lesions in different parts of their brains. Have you read Pinker's book on language?
It's not as localized to a specific side of the brain as Zooby suggests.

zoobyshoe said:
Why do people become right brain dominant for language, Dave?
They do. I'm not saying there's nothing to it; I'm simply saying you've painted too black and white an image of it. The brain compartmentalizes less than you suggest.

Your right hand is controlled by your left brain. Same with eyes. You right brain tends to be dominant with creative tasks, your left with language. But dominance is not the same as "completely responsible for".

cronxeh said:
My middle brain just informed me she is not wearing any clothe :redface:
That would be your lower brain. :devil:
 
  • #25
TheStatutoryApe said:
I thought that the old "right brained/left brained" thing was more or less a myth?

Here is the gif
[URL]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/thestatutoryape/1265424820731.gif[/URL]

It does not switch around on you on its own. I was able to get my perception of its motion to switch by focusing on the extended leg and telling myself it was moving the other way.

Interesting. I found it really easy to control her direction of spin.

Also, I could prevent her from going round. Just focus on the swinging foot, and tell yourself it's always at the forefront, ie, always in front of the other foot, and never goes behind it. Viola !

She's swinging away nonchalantly .. always facing you .. what a honey !
 
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  • #26
I saw her spinning anti-clockwise at first, which relieved me to know that these myths are saying I'm left sided :biggrin:
Couldn't for the life of me see how it's possible that she could be spinning clockwise, then I looked away and looked back and she was spinning clockwise, and once again couldn't for the life of me change the spin back to anti-clockwise.

Makes sense though... when I see things spinning I know I'm not thinking straight.
 
  • #27
DaveC426913 said:
It's not as localized to a specific side of the brain as Zooby suggests.
Why did Jill Taylor develop receptive and expressive aphasia after her left side bleed?
They do.
People become right brain dominant for language when there's something wrong with their left hemisphere. They believe this malfunction has to happen early, like in utero, or at least, in the first years of life. Then the right hemisphere is still plastic enough to take over a function which it does not normally do.
I'm not saying there's nothing to it; I'm simply saying you've painted too black and white an image of it. The brain compartmentalizes less than you suggest.
Your right hemisphere does not know your name and can't think in language. If we put the left half of your brain to sleep in a wada test these words in front of you would look like abstract, meaningless squiggles. People's speech would sound like gibberish noises.

This would not be true of the small percentage of individuals who have developed right hemisphere control of language in neuro-plastic response to some left hemisphere deficit early in life. That is an adaptive strategy in the face of a deficit, not a neutral alternative.

Your right hand is controlled by your left brain.
Yes.
Same with eyes.
No. Each eye is split vertically. The left visual field of each eye is processed by the right hemisphere, and the right visual field of each eye is processed by the left hemisphere.
You right brain tends to be dominant with creative tasks, your left with language. But dominance is not the same as "completely responsible for".
No. Read Ramachandran. The right hemisphere is perceptive, not creative. Everything we call "creativity" is a left hemisphere function. The point of drawing "on the right side of the brain" is that it sees things as they are, i.e. exactly because it is not creative.
 
  • #28
zoobyshoe said:
Everyone is left brained. Everything you think you are, all the things you tell yourself about yourself and the world, it all happens in the left hemisphere, the language hemisphere.

Your right hemisphere can't speak and does not even know your name.

This book by a woman who had most of her left hemisphere functions stripped away by a brain bleed is one of the most fascinating I've read about the left-right brain dichotomy:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430300612/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Hi Zooby, everyone,

Here is a great http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html" with Dr Taylor explaining her stroke in her own words, very good and it is only about 18 minutes long. I saw it about two years ago, if you haven't searched the site you should, many subjects mentioned here on PF have been covered there, and many are there for the picking that have not yet been discussed. IMHO, TED is a jewel, a diamond in the rough so to speak.

Enjoy...

Rhody...
 
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  • #29
They do the TED conference in my city. I'm wondering what you need to do to be able to attend a talk.

Never mind, I just took a peek and it says that 2011 is already sold out. :-/
 
  • #30
I can do it at will every 2 seconds, is it cheating if i kind of cover the page to see just the feet and then look back up at the whole image?
 
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  • #31
Still find it very entertaining.

Has anyone been able to see her swinging to and fro (side to side) without going round ?

I can do this by focusing on her swinging foot, and telling myself that it's just swinging, instead of going round.
 

1. Can the brain's perception truly be switched from left to right or vice versa?

While there is no definitive answer, research suggests that the concept of left and right brain dominance is oversimplified. Both hemispheres of the brain work together and are constantly communicating with each other. While certain functions may be more dominant in one hemisphere, the idea of completely switching perception is not supported by scientific evidence.

2. How does the brain process information differently between the left and right hemispheres?

The left hemisphere is typically associated with logical and analytical thinking, while the right hemisphere is associated with creativity and intuition. However, both hemispheres work together to process information and perform complex tasks. The left hemisphere may break down information into smaller parts, while the right hemisphere looks at the bigger picture.

3. Can certain activities or exercises help to strengthen one hemisphere of the brain?

While there is no evidence to suggest that one hemisphere can be strengthened over the other, engaging in a variety of activities that stimulate both hemispheres can improve overall brain function. Activities such as playing an instrument, learning a new language, or solving puzzles can engage both hemispheres and promote brain plasticity.

4. Are there any proven benefits to switching between left and right brain dominance?

There is no evidence to suggest that actively trying to switch between left and right brain dominance has any significant benefits. However, being able to utilize both hemispheres effectively and efficiently can lead to improved problem-solving skills and creativity.

5. Is there a difference in brain structure between individuals who are left-brained or right-brained?

While there may be slight differences in brain structure between individuals, there is no significant difference between left-brained and right-brained individuals. The concept of left and right brain dominance is a simplified way of understanding the complexity of the brain and its functions.

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