The picture disc is placed on the turntable. A wheeled support rests on top of the picture disc and a slotted disc rests on the wheels. The wheeled support has a wire rod attached that prevents it from turning. As the picture disc rotates with the turntable, the wheels spin the slotted disc in the opposite direction. The animation is viewed through the slotted disc, as demonstrated here.

Along with horse jumping fence, couple dancing, man swinging club and others, swapping heads was a staple of pre-cinema discs and strips. It's also an example of a particular attribute of phenakistiscope and zoetrope animation: depending on the number of frames relative to the number of slots, the subject will appear to stand still, drift to the right or drift to the left. There are thirteen instances of the headless body around the disc, but only twelve of the head, so the heads appear to drift to the left. To quote Henry Hopwood in Living Pictures, their History, Photo-Production and Practical Working (1899): "The effect is therefore that of a row of dancing figures, perpetually trying on heads and then passing them to their neighbours, who repeat the same antics."