When you use this multimedia exhibit…you’ll watch dots on a screen, which look like nine hollow, spinning spheres.
If you watch the spheres long enough, you can ‘will’ them to all change direction at the same time, or to spin in opposing directions.
The animation of the spinning spheres doesn’t actually change, it’s purely your perception of how they move and perceptual rivalry in your brain.
As you watch the dotty spheres spinning, you’ll see them switch and spin in different directions.
When you see something that could be interpreted two different ways, your brain’s visual system ‘flips’ each interpretation back and forth, because it can only handle one interpretation at a time. This is called perceptual rivalry.
Perceptual rivalry techniques are sometimes used in art works and illusions like impossible objects.
Even artists like Salvador Dali took advantage of our perceptual rivalry.
Look at his painting Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire.
Can you see the bust of Voltaire and the two women at the same time, or does your brain keep jumping between the two interpretations?
This exhibit was based on work by Professor Jack Pettigrew, University of Queensland.
Professor Pettigrew is researching whether each hemisphere of your brain may be involved in switching the direction of the spinning spheres during perceptual rivalry.