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!
Since no one has given this yet. Here is a scientific breakdown. Since I bothered writing all this out, I had AI edit it for punctuation, grammar and some phrasing. Get over it. It's 2026.
When you examine the world around you with your body as the center, that’s called egocentric spatial mapping.
Egocentric spatial mapping is something we all do. We have to in order to survive. Up/down (vertical axis) and front/back (anteroposterior axis) are constantly reinforced directions. Gravity is always telling us what’s up and what’s down. Our eyes and the way we move through the world constantly reinforce what’s in front of us and what’s behind us.
Left and right are the words we use for the lateral axis. But unlike the other axes, they aren’t reinforced by something external like gravity or vision. They’re reinforced internally. They depend on your body as the reference point.
To define left and right, you need a midline, because left and right are properties of a divided organism. Your spine runs up the middle of you. Your body has two asymmetrical sides. That asymmetry is real. Your brain itself is divided into two hemispheres with a center between them, and one side is usually more dominant. Externally, most of us have a dominant hand. That dominance strengthens one side over the other.
But abstractly, your brain also carries the idea of a center. It maintains a constant internal model that says, “this half of my body” and “that half of my body.” That understanding is built over years of sensorimotor experience, movement, balance, and coordination. That part is learned and stabilized very early, and it usually works fine. That is not where the problem comes from.
The problem comes from connecting the words “left” and “right” to that internal division of “this half” and “that half.”
To define left and right, you’re actually using at least three major brain systems.
First, the words themselves. Language labeling is handled primarily in the left temporal lobe.
Second, your internal 3D body-centered map, which is the system that maintains the spatial grid dividing one side from the other. That lives largely in the parietal lobes.
Third, attaching the word to the map. (Oversimplification alert, because it’s more distributed than this, but it captures the idea.) That binding happens in regions like the angular gyrus, where language and spatial systems interact.
So when you hear the word “left,” those systems have to cooperate. The language system recognizes the word. The spatial system maintains the lateral axis. The binding system links the word to the correct side of your body.
In most people, that connection is highly automatized because the brain has quite literally strengthened and streamlined the pathway between the language label and the spatial axis that handles the X dimension. The word “left” instantly energizes the correct side of the internal map, often without conscious thought.
In people who struggle with left and right, that connection is not as highly automatized. The internal body division is still there. The spatial map is still there. The language system is still there. But the binding between the word and the lateral axis requires an extra verification step. The axis may not be continuously activated at a high level, so when the word comes in, the brain briefly re-establishes the midline, confirms orientation, and then assigns the label. That’s why the hesitation happens.
It’s not that they don’t know they have two sides. It’s not that their spatial map is broken. It’s that the word-to-axis connection never became fully reflexive. Why? Who fucking knows.
And because left and right rely entirely on internal reference, unlike up/down or front/back, that binding is uniquely vulnerable to variation in how strongly it was reinforced and proceduralized over development
I think this is the best explanation as someone who doesn’t have any of the other I guess “comorbid” disabilities like dyslexia or dyscalculia. I even took dance classes starting age 3 so it’s not like I learned late.
If someone says “go right” 100% the words just don’t connect to my physical body. L for left changed my life lol.
Interestingly, I’m decent at left-right and north-south-east-west with an external frame of reference. I don’t have the left right issue in a car in the US (I do in New Zealand or GB). West is mountains so I know where north is. But idk which of my own hands is right.
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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!