the legends are true
It is possible to see this silhouetted figure rotating in both directions. Charles got it right away; yesterday I finally managed to as well. It seems extremely unlikely that the neuroscience claims attached to the demo mean anything. Still, it's a pretty neat optical illusion.
But I'm left wondering: did they really have to give the figure nipples?
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i got it pretty fast, too - as long as you pick a fixed point on which to focus, it seemed pretty easy to make it switch.
I think this is all some big conspiracy to make me feel insane. There's no way that thing goes in any direction other than clockwise.
Based upon an impressive sample size (2!) it seems like women might have an easier time of seeing it go both ways, which is interesting since spatial reasoning is one of the very very very few mental tasks where men and women show (just barely) measurable differences in performance. Or maybe we get distracted by the aforementioned nipples.
Anyway, Matt: what finally worked for me was closing my eyes after looking at the figure and imagining it rotating in the other way. REALLY work at it, until the sense of rotation is very strong. It's sort of like fighting against a current. Once you feel a sense of easy counterclockwise motion, open your eyes and try to believe that the figure conforms to what you were imagining.
The easiest way to get her to spin the other way around is to cover up the top 2/3 of her with your hand. Then make her foot spin in the desired direction (all you need to do is visualize one foot going behind, rather than in front of, the other foot). Once you've convinced yourself that the feet are spinning in the preferred direction, uncover the rest of your body and check out her nipples the rest of her body will rotate in the desired direction.
Dammit, "check out her nipples" was supposed to be struck through.
I actually saw this thing reverse direction about 5 times in the first 2 or 3 minutes of looking at it. I had no control over the reversals, though, and it only happened if I looked away from the screen and then looked back. Does all this make me a woman?
Oh, and for what it's worth, from a highly technical neurological standpoint, I took a test in my high school photography class to determine whether I was right- or left-brained. I came out dead even. The creepy old man who taught the class said he'd never seen that before.
I got it as counter-clockwise first (big surprise there) but with a lot of effort, I could make it switch back and forth.