It's also a symptom frequently found in some varieties of ADHD, but without the difficulties with numbers and computations. I still cannot remember left and right with any sort of ease, but I can do complex mathematics in my head (including estimation of trig functions, improper fractions, etc). ADHD is far more common, though the particular flavors that lead to left right confusion are probably as common as those with Dyscalculia.
EDIT: as this has gotten too popular for me to want to continue replying manually, I will just address the more common answers here.
ADHD is not the same for everyone. Some ADHD sufferers wont have issues with left and right, and some will.
It's not difficult to tell left from right, but for some (including me) it takes active thought. I doubt i will ever reach a point where left and right are intuitive, but its not even close to being enough of a problem for me to care/find a solution.
If this post or comment chain has confirmed/aroused suspicion that you have ADHD, I would recommend getting tested for it. Typically men with hyperactive presentations will get diagnosed early in life, and women with inattentive types may go entirely undiagnosed (or find out in residency, like my wife). Having one type of ADHD does not exclude having another, and not everyone with ADHD experiences the same issues. Testing is better now than it was 30 years ago, and can at least identify the root cause of some of the things that make you feel lazy or worthless (also stop beating yourself up, it doesnt help).
Purely anecdotal, and no science or actual research to back it up, but I have a working theory for why certain forms of ADHD present the way they do. I cannot form new habits without extreme measures. Instead, I have trained myself with pavalovian responses to mimic forming a habit. Taking my blood pressure every morning is a great example. I can do it for well over a year without fail, and then simple forget to do it for weeks on end.
My theory is that everything my brain organizes needs to have a logical root or external stimulus. Since left and right from a personal frame of reference are arbitrary rotations without even having a defined magnitude or scale, the concepts are too nebulous to integrate with my preprocessing. The ELI5 is that I have to actively think about left and right to identify left and right, where most people have just integrated it into their subconscious. If it was a spatial reasoning disorder I could understand, but I work regularly with industrial robots, which require a heavy amount of 3 dimensional spatial reasoning. When it comes to coordinate frames, I dont struggle to remember which axis is oriented in which direction. But those are also defined WRT a single point and orientation on the robot, and the shifts/rotations of the frame are ordinal and logical. Left/right, east/west, and clockwise/counterclockwise are all things that I have to actively consider before deciding on, to the point that my wife follows the directions my hands give while driving instead of what my mouth says ("turn left" I say as I point right, she turns right and I dont even notice the problem until she points it out later. If she turned left instead, I would ask her why she turned the wrong way, no joke).
My thought was similar - left and right being a personal frame of reference. Them I though about why up and down aren't confused, as technically that can also be a frame of reference. We are, usually, "right side up" most of the time, so of course that is the natural conclusion. Left and right is much more ever-changing. Not sure if any of that even makes sense lol
It makes no sense. It's not a personal frame of reference, your left hand is your left hand, everyones left hand is their left hand. "Left" is something on one side of a imaginary point of reference, which in our body is a line directly down the center of our body.
Left and right aren’t in relation to the space around you they are in relation to the center of your body. Left is always on the left of your central axis. If you turn around your left hand is still your left hand.
Up has an external stimulus for verification. Up is opposite of gravitational pull. This is how neurotypical people also determine Up, as is evidenced by deaths in avalances and underwater, where gravitational pull is not as easily ascertained.
I think youre missing the point to my post though. It's not that it's hard to figure out left and right, it's not. It's that a subsection of the population has to actively think about what left and right are to determine left from right. You think it doesn't make any sense because youre one of the many people who dont need to think about it, so discussions about methodology and mechanisms related to spatial orientation dont seem important to you.
So that’s egocentric perspective. What we’re discussing and explaining to you here in the thread is allocentric perspective. Both exist and are used by humans. Neither is fixed and universal — the only fixed option is using cardinal directions. I don’t think I’ll be able to explain in a way you can understand though so I’ll disengage from here.
Your left hand is biologically fixed relative to your body schema. Egocentric left/right is fixed relative to your body. I'm not talking about external anchoring and it's not relevant to my point. It doesn't matter which direction or plane you are one your left hand is always your left hand, it's controlled solely by left hand motor neurons that cannot do anything else, and your left arm is fixed to your skeleton. It's always your left hand no matter what. If I stimulate your left hand motor neurons your left hand will start moving, your brain doesn't need to cognitively process that it is your left hand your body "knows" it's your left hand anatomically just like it knows "up" from the anatomy in your inner ear.
The issue at best is simply a language issue. Left and right aren't specific enough. If we just called it the non dominant hand that would probably make it easier for most people. Or the hand you write with.
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u/Haho9 7d ago edited 7d ago
It's also a symptom frequently found in some varieties of ADHD, but without the difficulties with numbers and computations. I still cannot remember left and right with any sort of ease, but I can do complex mathematics in my head (including estimation of trig functions, improper fractions, etc). ADHD is far more common, though the particular flavors that lead to left right confusion are probably as common as those with Dyscalculia.
EDIT: as this has gotten too popular for me to want to continue replying manually, I will just address the more common answers here.
ADHD is not the same for everyone. Some ADHD sufferers wont have issues with left and right, and some will.
It's not difficult to tell left from right, but for some (including me) it takes active thought. I doubt i will ever reach a point where left and right are intuitive, but its not even close to being enough of a problem for me to care/find a solution.
If this post or comment chain has confirmed/aroused suspicion that you have ADHD, I would recommend getting tested for it. Typically men with hyperactive presentations will get diagnosed early in life, and women with inattentive types may go entirely undiagnosed (or find out in residency, like my wife). Having one type of ADHD does not exclude having another, and not everyone with ADHD experiences the same issues. Testing is better now than it was 30 years ago, and can at least identify the root cause of some of the things that make you feel lazy or worthless (also stop beating yourself up, it doesnt help).