Science has “solved the eternal puzzle” of why we confuse left with right

No matter how many equations have been solved during this century, achievements have been made that no one would have expected and technology has developed to such an extent that the future seems scary, but there is one very simple and easy thing that even though the we have been taught from a young age, it confuses us. To distinguish the right from the left.

A recent study therefore came to answer this very crucial question.

After all, confusing the right with the left is not a permanent problem, while most of the time we don’t even give a basis for the reasons that made us confused.

The research found that about one in six people have difficulty distinguishing right from left.

“Nobody has trouble giving instructions about ‘up or down and front or back,'” says Ineke van der Ham, professor of neuropsychology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, pointing out that “distinguishing left from right is different because of symmetry and the position you are in.

Complicated procedure

According to the expert, the distinction between left and right is actually quite a complex process, which requires the vigilance of memory, language, visual and spatial processing and mental rotation.

In fact, researchers are just now beginning to understand exactly what happens in our brains when we do it – and why it’s so much easier for some people than for others.

“Some people can tell right from left from birth and can do it without even thinking,” says Gerard Gormley, a general practitioner and clinical professor at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.

However, as he points out, there are others who must go through a process in their minds before making sure.

To explore this strand, medical students were asked questions. Participants described various techniques for distinguishing right from left. Others make various shapes with their thumb and forefinger, others think about which hand they write or play the guitar with.

Conclusions

The researchers also put the participants through a test to dig deeper into how these strategies work.

“We have not completely resolved the issue. But we managed to recognize that our body is a key element in recognizing left from right,” says Ineke van der Ham, professor of neuropsychology.

In additional tests, the researchers found that men tended to respond faster than women in the right-left distinction, although previous research had not shown this to be the case.

In any case, exactly why people differ in their ability to tell left from right is unclear, but research shows that the more asymmetrical someone’s body is (especially with their arms), the easier it is to tell the left from the right.

The researchers also found that if one side of your brain is slightly larger than the other, then distinguishing the two may be easier.

Editor: Money Review

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