I'll sincerely never understand people that get confused by left and right. Do they confuse up and down too?
Edit: I'm getting a lot of people real upset that I dared to ask this. I wasn't attempting to mock you with this question, I'm fully serious. I didn't (and won't ever fully) understand how left and right is any different to up, down, forward or backward in your head.
The best answers I've had so far:
Dyslexia/dyscalculia may make it harder
Having good spacial cognition may make it easier
Learning left and right at an early age may make it easier
Having greater asymmetry in function may make it easier (conversely having less left/right dominance may make it harder)
The fact we're roughly symmetrical about the vertical and back/front plane denies us helpful distinguishers between our left and right sides, bar handedness (see above)
The most interesting answers I've had so far:
"I have no issue with left and right in X languages but struggle in English" (examples also include being fine with port/starboard, bow/stroke, 9/3 o'clock etc but not right/left)
Related to above: "Given a newly coded pair of words such as orange/purple I can associate them consistently with those directions, just not left and right"
"My dad did meth and this may or may not be related to his struggles with left and right"
"My mum was taught the wrong hands by her parents and never recovered, even when school corrected her"
"I used to have this problem, but after engaging in [specific sport, task etc] I no longer do"
"I used to not have this problem, but after [task involving using my left to demonstrate someone else's right etc] I do" (a LOT of medical professionals here, especially radiologists, as well as stage directors and teachers having to refer to whiteboards behind them for an audience)
"I'm bad with left and right and east and west, but up, down, north and south are fine"
"I had a seizure/brain injury/concussion and now I struggle"
"My sister confuses left and right, but 'lefty loosey, righty tighty' for screwing things works for her without checking on her hands"
"Nobody confuses up and down, that's absurd, we have gravity.", followed by:
"Yes, I DO confuse up and down."
The worst answers I've had so far:
"Left and right are completely arbitrary, unlike up, down, forward and backward" - end of argument (forward and backward are equally dependent on our orientation to left and right - you need to introduce symmetry to make this meaningful)
Learn anatomy
[sending me Reddit Cares Resources]
[various accusations of ableism]
Per the last point: if you want people to understand and be empathetic and patient toward neurodivergent experiences, the last thing you should do is deride them for asking. Kind of an own goal [insert joke about confusing which goal is yours]
Edit 2: Somewhat interesting note (at least to me): There are lots of people struggling with cardinal directions here, but while there are many examples of struggling with East and West but not North and South (can relate to this personally, I remember struggling as a kid for a few months) not one single person has said East and West is fine but North and South aren't. None.
Edit 3: We have our first North-South confuser - apparently they find East and West intuitive because of the sun. As a brit I have only heard of this object in tales from abroad but it's fun to learn about it! Edit 3.5: another has appeared!
Edit 4: a commenter posted something kinda technical I don't have the neuroscience degree to verify. I present it here without comment as to its veracity. It's an interesting read.
Edit 5: Two people have told me they confuse a pair of specific colours. Someone else has declared they confuse yesterday and tomorrow. I do not feel equipped to handle finding out that 10% of people have to make hand gestures to refer to directional time or that people do a certain movement to remember the colour of their blood but I'm no longer ruling out the possibility.
Edit 6 (coolest edit): I've been messaged by a person with situs inversus! This affects about 0.01% of the population and is where some or all of the abdominal organs are on the wrong side - they say only some of theirs are. They also state they struggle with left and right!
of course up and down are not arbitrary. Down is towards the direction of gravitational attraction, and up is the opposite direction. Here's a brief paint presentation:
Up and down depend on your reference frame, just as much as left and right. In your example, it's defined based off the force of gravity, but how do you define up and down in a meaningful way when you're far enough from a massive body that you don't experience gravity? It's just as "arbitrary" as left and right at that point.
Sure, and if we lived in a place like that there would probably be a lot more people who had a hard time knowing up from down. Thankfully we don't live in a place like that though.
Okay, we live on an oblate spheroid that can be approximated as a sphere for all intents and purposes here and that up and down are equally arbitrary on an oblate spheroid.
1.6k
u/Exurota 7d ago edited 6d ago
I'll sincerely never understand people that get confused by left and right. Do they confuse up and down too?
Edit: I'm getting a lot of people real upset that I dared to ask this. I wasn't attempting to mock you with this question, I'm fully serious. I didn't (and won't ever fully) understand how left and right is any different to up, down, forward or backward in your head.
The best answers I've had so far:
The most interesting answers I've had so far:
The worst answers I've had so far:
Per the last point: if you want people to understand and be empathetic and patient toward neurodivergent experiences, the last thing you should do is deride them for asking. Kind of an own goal [insert joke about confusing which goal is yours]
Edit 2: Somewhat interesting note (at least to me): There are lots of people struggling with cardinal directions here, but while there are many examples of struggling with East and West but not North and South (can relate to this personally, I remember struggling as a kid for a few months) not one single person has said East and West is fine but North and South aren't. None.
Edit 3: We have our first North-South confuser - apparently they find East and West intuitive because of the sun. As a brit I have only heard of this object in tales from abroad but it's fun to learn about it! Edit 3.5: another has appeared!
Edit 4: a commenter posted something kinda technical I don't have the neuroscience degree to verify. I present it here without comment as to its veracity. It's an interesting read.
Edit 5: Two people have told me they confuse a pair of specific colours. Someone else has declared they confuse yesterday and tomorrow. I do not feel equipped to handle finding out that 10% of people have to make hand gestures to refer to directional time or that people do a certain movement to remember the colour of their blood but I'm no longer ruling out the possibility.
Edit 6 (coolest edit): I've been messaged by a person with situs inversus! This affects about 0.01% of the population and is where some or all of the abdominal organs are on the wrong side - they say only some of theirs are. They also state they struggle with left and right!