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Comment by detst | Hacker News Reader

It seems that no one has claimed not to be able to do this so I will. It's driving me mad. I spent at least 5 minutes on it. I cannot see how she could possibly appear to be moving counter-clockwise.

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I came across this animation years ago and most people I shared it with could only perceive one direction of motion - including folk I'd put money on having a higher IQ than myself (I don't know my IQ, though).

I suppose another variable is how long you get to look at it - I seem to remember being similarly frustrated at first.

Its probably going to work different for everyone. I see some saying they concentrate on the feet. I just look at the torso and the arm. To switch directions at will I just have to imagine the arm going behind or in front of the body. Its not instant, it takes a revolution or two.

I found that for me I can easily change the direction depending on which foot I focus on in my peripheral vision. I don't know if that'll help. The initial shift from clockwise to counter-clockwise gave me a headache/weird feeling inside my head.

To make the switch, visualize what the rotation you will see if you are standing above her looking directly down at her or from below her looking directly up at her.

Using your hands to block part of the image -- try the top, bottom, or top and bottom (revealing only the middle) may help.

I actually found the switch to be most apparent when focusing on the left/right sides of the figure. The left rotates counter-clockwise, while the right rotates clockwise.

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