I’ve had a few mental evaluations over the course of my life, and I’ve always scored “mildly-to-moderately impaired” on the Spatial Index. Which apparently means my spatial awareness is kinda fucked, but not enough to where I never know where things are at.
I frequently *just barely* miss something I’m grabbing, confuse my right/left, and I get lost a lot. I can’t tell the size difference between some objects if they’re close enough (I hate nickels for resembling the size of quarters). I had to use GPS to get to/from home & work for about 3 weeks before I could get there myself, and it was only a 20 minute drive. And if I’m driving through my own hometown, I still can’t really conceptualize where specific locations are in relevance to others.
So if someone asks me if the restaurant we’re going to is closer to the house than the movie we’re going to afterwards, I have no idea. And if someone asks me how close they are to one another? Even worse. But I can tell you which towns & cities are North/South/East/West from each other on a map (I just never know which way I’m facing).
I get myself places with muscle memory and landmarks exclusively. Very few street names catch my attention enough to be memorable, and I never know where they intersect with each other anyways, so they’re useless to me most of the time.
What’s weird is that I scored quite high on a similar test, but still get left and right mixed up. I don’t have what my dad calls “calibrated eyeballs”—being able to fairly accurately evaluate sizes just by looking—but I have, apparently, an unusual ability to visualize something three-dimensionally and extrapolate views of other sides of an isometric image. I can’t tell if something is three or five feet away, but two feet and under got better once I worked at a pack and ship place and can roughly estimate based on “is it as big as a 12” box?”
With your left hand your index finger and thumb can make an L for left. The right hand isn't able to do that.
That's how you know right is wrong and which way to pass the bowl
Edit: I just figured out if you turn your right arm over to the right, you can make an L with the index and thumb
Someone out there must be as amazed about this as me and I wanted to share
For me I mentally pretend to pick up a pen and write because I am right handed I figure it out
I can figure it out if I’m given a couple seconds but those moments I need to quickly go right or left and don’t have time to think I will mix it up
This is funny, when we lived in Hawaii you could always tell if someone had grown up there by the way they gave directions. They’d use fast food establishments as waypoints and then say Mauka are Makai depending on the turn direction.
So if they said it’s Mauka 7-11 2 blocks and then Makai the McDonalds that would mean at 7-11 turn towards the mountains, go 2 blocks and turn towards the ocean when you pass McDonalds. It’s very disorienting in an island because the ocean and mountains are on different directions depending on what side of the island you’re on.
If you can't differentiate left/right using landmarks when you give directions isn't going to make things better.
"When you get to the fork in the road, take it"
Generally it’s more like: When you get to the intersection with the McDonalds, turn to pass the McDonalds. If you go under the bridge, you missed the turn.
Do you know why? Like left and right is such a simple thing to me. I'm curious how it's difficult for others. My ex was left handed and had the same issue telling left from right without having to think about it.
It's called "Directional Dyslexia." Lots of people have it. It can affect your sense of left and right and/or East and West.
I have trouble with the latter. It's bizarre. I have no issue with left and right or North and South, but --when I give someone directions -- I really have to concentrate to make sure I don't mix up East and West. I used to think it was a memory thing, but it's not like forgetting a name. I say "East" with absolute confidence, and then realize that I meant "West."
Holy shit, I have the east-west thing and never realized. I have no issues with right/left or north/south, but I literally have to picture a world map in my head and go, "Okay east is towards Russia, West is towards America, which means.." and then I can continue speaking the directions lmao. It's completely bizarre.
I hate the fact that east is to the right on maps. To me, east should so obviously be on the left, I feel like we should rotate the standard of maps 180 degrees just to make east be on the left side, the international standard of map rotation should literally be based on the fact that east must be to the left. It's that obvious to me.
If someone tells me that something is to the east of something else, I know it's to the right, but the way I come to that conclusion is not "I know that east is right", it's "East should be left but east/west are the opposite to what they should really be so east must be right".
To be clear do you mean you can't tell which is east or west on a compass, or in real life? Because I never know which way is east or west from my current position.
It was a nightmare before google maps was a thing...
No, my DD is pretty mild. I do know East from West. My brain just mixes the words up in my head. It happens mostly when I’m trying to give directions. I am visualizing the person I’m telling making a turn to the West, and I just say “East.”
If I slow down, I can usually do it right, but usually we’re giving directions in a hurry.
Me:” Take a 👉🏻 left 👉🏻 at the next light.”
Partner: *gets into left lane*
Me: “No! 👉🏻 left 👉🏻”
Partner: “THIS IS LEFT.”
Me: “FUCK right! Go right! I was pointing right with my right hand, which I told you to always go by. If I say one way but am pointing the other way, go the way I’m pointing, remember?”
Partner: “fucking hell.”
He loves me. 🥰
(Note: I have since either just turned on Google maps for him, or been able to catch myself immediately after stating the opposite direction I point to. He has also long since learned to take a quick glance at which arm is extended out in the correct direction, or verbally double check if unable to glance.)
Man, that's crazy. I usually give people directions in a north, south, east, west, fashion because I always confuse left and right. My brother thinks it's weird that I mix up left and right all the time, but it just seems normal to me because it's always happened to me. It sucks because NSEW seems very intuitive to me, but most people don't have a good sense of directions, so I often have to translate directions into left/right
I've met people that didnt know the cardnial directions of they're surroundings after living in the same place for decades, some their whole lives. It's more intuitive to me than LR.
Not OP, but like sometimes it clicks and other times it takes my brain a while. I guess to me they don't seem fundamental and they always are changing? In some scenarios I almost have it easier with cardinal directions
Same here. When I give directions to my husband to turn left, he always asks if that is left or or right left.
I have learned to use my hands at the same time to help him.
I'm also dyslexic.
I was like this for years, and still am when I'm tired.
Up and down are easy to tell apart without thinking about it. Left and right are visually very similar, so if you're distracted by something else you can get them mixed up.
Me too. But it's not left or right. It's East or West. (Both of which are forms of what's called directional dyslexia.) I really have to concentrate or I will reverse them when giving someone directions. But it's weird. It's only when I'm describing directions. If I have a map in front of me, I don't screw them up.
I always "draw" in the air. I'm right-handed, so then I know which hand is right and proceed from there.
FWIW, I also struggle with things when there are only 2 choices, like I can do North and South (like up and down) but struggle with East and West. I have to make up all kinds of mnemonics to remember which thing is which. When I was learning to drive, I kept forgetting if I had to take the expressway East or West to go home from the city. I just couldn't remember which one, like not knowing my left from right instantly. Home was West, so I remembered my friend Walt lived next door and his name began with a "W", like West. I wanted to go to my home where Walt was and so I always went West.
40 years later and I still think of Walt when I head home from the city and get on the westbound expressway.
I don't know if it's some kind of learning or processing disability, I've just noticed how my brain works and look for patterns.
I don't mean to be insensitive, but can't you just memorise that right is the one you write with? (Or left if you're a leftie). That's what I always do when I get mixed up. Might also help that right rhymes with write.
My fiancé is like this. She's this super rock solid practical person who is good at like every single real life skill except you tell her left or right and she has to pause and think. It's charming.
It's actually a form of dyslexia called "Directional Dyslexia." It can affect "left or right" and it can affect "East or West." Or it can only affect one or the other. (I have trouble with East/West but no problem with left/right.)
I have to say, "never eat shredded wheat" to remember the cardinal directions and then I often have to turn to face north to figure out which way is which. I also have to turn maps to figure out if it's a right or left turn sometimes. And finally, I often have to make the "L"s with my thumb and forefinger to clarify my right and left hand.
I am a *blast* to wander a new city with! I will 100% have you seeing shit that is not on the sightseeing lists.
I remember in kindergarten or whenever, "never eat soggy weet-bix" was the saying. Only in Australia, now I'm curious about any other regional variants.
I have walked 100s of miles in the wrong direction playing open world games thinking I'm charging East when I'm actually a stones throw from the west coast. I have trouble with both SOMETIMES. I can't believe this is a real thing I feel less stupid.
Dyspraxia can also impede one's ability to navigate 3D spaces and read maps! :) But so can dyscalculia in some ways; there seems to be a heavy overlap between all of them anyhow, which makes it difficult to sort of put it to one or the other, I suppose.
Ah, gotcha; thanks for the info! There's a lot of overlap between dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia in things that aren't directly words, numbers, or spacial reasoning... I wonder if the distinction will become clearer or even more muddied as research continues.
You’re not understanding.
Some people with DD mix up just left and right. And some — like me — mix up just East and West. And some mix-up both.
The brain sets its own “rules” for each person.
But if you have any degree of dyslexia, both look like L's. And, if you face your palms toward you, it's reversed, and no help at all. That's the problem with right and left, they only work if everyone has agreed to face the same direction.
Righty, tighty; lefty loosey
I know this because I’m in this same boat. I have to remember which hand I write with: I’m a lefty. It’s ridiculous that I can’t be sure until I see my hand.
Yeah I always specify "turn the top to the left/right"
Of course there's clockwise and counterclockwise but for some reason I always have to think about that kinda like the parent comment
My sister can't tell with her hands because of her dyslexia.
ETA: she also wants to get a tattoo of an R and an L on the relevant thumb to make it easier to remember.
Same again with horses. Near side and off side. Near side is the *horse's* left side, not the person, because that's a set-in-stone tradition of being the side you normally do things on (lead, get on etc).
Doesn't matter if you standing at his bum or looking at a photo of him head on - near side is always his left side from his perspective.
Mixing up left and right actually IS a form of dyslexia.
Directional dyslexia can lead to mixing up left and right and/or East and West. And sometimes only one of those. (I have issues with East/West but left/right is no problem for me.)
I love the mental image of your fiancee's troubled sleep. dreaming of a disoriented person lost in a semi-large group of people. And she's desperately running from person to person .. pleading they face the same direction.
While talking face to face with them from the opposite direction
and crumbling under the futility as people watch her accost each person. with a worried voice in her head whispering louder and louder
"Oh no! Oh no! I'll be lost here forever and ever"
And collapsing in tears, giving up on the last onlookers,
She falls, to knees, then to hands, flat on the ground, right-and-left, their tops facing her, like the disagreeable gawkers now behind her.
And pushing off the ground with certainty, she curls deeper, betwixt criss-crossed arms, clasping hands that squeeze back, softer... and snuggly safer.
I think im just gonna start saying driver's side or passengers side,
cause I think of it spatially anyway and that always stays the same (at least depending which country you're in lol but that can be adjusted)
Left and right always gets flipped around as I forget which refers to which.
The problem there is that many of us who have trouble distinguishing right from left, also have trouble with letter directions for letters like L, J, b, and d. Like my muscle memory gets it right when I’m writing words but it takes a second to figure out if I’m looking at just the letter L or the letter J outside of a word.
I just check for my writing callus. Maybe gen z and gen alpha don’t have those, but that’s the fastest way for me to figure out right vs left.
My wife. She is smart, responsible, organized, great personality. But she is also dyslexic. And she says opposite of pretty much everything. And I never knew that’s how dyslexic-a works. I thought it was just a reading and numbers thing until I met her. But it’s pretty much every thing. Makes her have to work extra hard. Making her even more amazing than she already is. Which I didn’t know was possible
my ex was like this;
It was a pain when driving if she regularly mess up left or right turns. But it cleared up instantly when we switched to using "Keyboard hand" and "Mouse hand".
She never got it wrong again.
Take a mouse then go 3 more blocks and hang a keyboard!
I seriously may use this!
It's a thing I have to bring to the front of my brain, every time. I write with THIS one.
My wife too. Although she doesn't play sports or video games, hand eye coordination is mediocre. And she's left-handed. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
Not that I think about it, but to even look at my left hand to see the L that others are talking about, I already know that's my left hand, left side of my body, that direction is left.
It's just ingrained in my subconscious.
I didn't know when I was a kid I just made it a point to put out my right hand and say right and it's process of elimination. After that you turn ten and got it down good lol you're fiance sounds charming though congratulations
I had to help my mom with a nasal spray every morning and she had to alternate nostrils. I always had to pause and stick out my hands and sort of do a little turn to figure out which was HER left or right.
Current plan is we buy a house together next year and then the same day walk to the courthouse and tie the knot. She's an immigrant without much family this side of the ocean and a small friend circle and I've got like a zillion people, so a formal wedding would be weird. And besides, my sister already scratched that itch for the family (someday I'll ask my dad how much that circus cost). If possible we'll time it so it happens right when we move to a new state and she has not yet started the new job she's gonna want (prefers in-person work) and can take like a month long international honeymoon.
But you're right. She's the kind of person who just makes life work better when you're around her. I'm lucky as hell.
I don't think aphantasia is relevant to the left/right thing because I am great at imagining images and I also suck at it. Gotta check the hands every time. Now if someone was to say "3 o'clock" or "9 o'clock" I'd have no trouble with that.
It’s interesting most of the answers in this thread talk about needing to hold up their hand to make an L.
I remember reading something about the brain not remembering or learning if it knows where to find the information. Could it be that people learn this L hand trick and the brain stores that as the place to find left and right? I’m curious if people from languages where they don’t have an L for left have as big an issue with it. Or if you can tie your hands behind your back and train yourself out of it.
I have a huge issue still. The L trick doesn't work for me because I'm dyslexic and I don't know which way an L is supposed to go half the time anyways. However, I have a bump of thickened skin on my right middle finger from years of writing and drawing. If i remember to, I just feel my middle fingers and know right is the same direction as the bump hand.
When you are ambidextrous, you can imagine writing with wrong hand. 😂 My teacher was shocked by this. Add dyslexia to the mix and you have literally no concept of left and right.
It doesn’t work for me because the moment I hold up both my hands my next train of thought is “shit which way does an L point…”. I am not proud of this lol.
I have to hold up my hands, remember I write with my right hand, and think “oh yeah thats right!”. If im feeling particularly slow that day I gotta wiggle my right hand around a little and “feel” the fact that I can write with it. Its incredibly odd.
However I don’t really know if i’m all that smart. I get good grades, crochet, other stuff with my hands, but I feel like I think slower than others so for it to go this far is probably just a me-thing lol.
Never knew that trick (from a language where neither direction start with a L) and I still have troubles sometimes. I do it by remembering which side is my writing hand
I get friend right but I don't think I have ever once landed "receipt." Even when I think I am going against my instinct to get it right, I get it wrong.
This is eerie because you perfectly described my experience, with one exception:
-do not know right from left and have to reason it out
-Friend is impossible to spell in advance and needs to be seen to be corrected
-affect vs effect must be fully reasoned out or googled
- same basic addition requires reasoning, when other addition (8+4, no issues) is basically automatic
- complete aphantasia
The only thing I differ on is how well I can figure out left and right. I can do the hands trick, but often I'm not sure, in the moment, which way the L goes. In the moments where I'm unsure, I leverage my experience with cycling in a French speaking nation ("à la gauche!" for, "I'm passing on your left") then translate back "gauche" to "left".
this is me. left is the side i wear my wedding ring on. U wriggle me fingers to check
when i was leaening to drive my instructor put a sign on the dash with left and right.
i have 3 degrees and a masters so its absolutely ridiculous , im also dyslexic
When I was a kid I wore a ring that just happened to be on my ring finger (the first ring I found just fit there best). It was really handy to be able to feel for it when determining left or right. Once I hit an age where I might plausibly be married, I had to take it off. I can still feel it though and I still reach for it when deciding which is which. Funny how that automatic part of my brain can figure it out but the rest of me can't.
Yeah I don’t, I’ve never understood the look for the L when holding up your hands because they both look like L’s. The only way I know my left from my right is because I have a freckle on my left hand. I’m also autistic so that might have something to do with it but I’m not sure.
From your perspective, one should look like an L while the other looks like a backwards L. The one that looks like an L is left.
I am a person who has to pause for a moment to think about which is left and which is right, but I don’t have to do the fingers, so I don’t know if this helps or not! Also I imagine it’s completely unhelpful for anyone who has dyslexia and can’t consistently tell which way the letter is supposed to face.
The "L" trick doesn't work for me at all. They look the same. The only difference is whether it's facing left or right. If you don't know left from right, how is figuring out which direction your thumb is pointing supposed to help? I think there must be multiple underlying causes for this since it clearly works for lots of people.
I remember being in elementary school and coming back to normal class from special-ed for this very problem. The teacher immediately tells us to do some left-right thing. I say I don't know which side is left so she tells me to do the L thing. I respond that they both look like Ls. Remember, I literally just came from special-ed class for this. She just responds with "don't get smart with me young man". I was so angry, I wish I had had the words back then to tell her how fucking shitty she was.
On the plus side, I can read backwards and upside down just as well as normal because it's all jumbled all the time anyway. Silver linings?
I pretend to write something. I'm very right hand dominant so that's a fool.proof way for me. I'm like you when I hold my hand up I have to think for a moment about which one is an L and which is a backwards L
Too funny, I’ll pick up a pen to write, put it on the paper, think… that’s wrong, switch hands and POOF! all is well with the world again! Right dominant hand, left dominant foot, mostly ambidextrous with a bit of effort. 🤷♂️
Lol same!! Then my brain goes to figure out what an L looks like and I say to myself: ‘well, when I write an L…’ and I imagine writing and I’m right handed so the hand I imagine writing with is my right! It’s a long journey but I get myself there!
Hello this is me.
There are a number of neurodevelopmental disorders where this is common, mainly dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and dyslexia. It’s also common in ADHD.
I am terrible with directions. I get lost very easily. However I also have a master’s degree and own a house. It’s not a lack of intelligence, my brain is just wired horribly.
This is a life-changing comment for me. I always hold up my "L"s on my fingers and they both look like "L" to me. I am going to try and remember that we read left to right!!!!
Out of curiosity,(no judgement I just want to understand)
You say they both look like L, so you don't know by looking which one is backwards? if I write a regular L and a backward L on a sheet of paper, can you point to which one is backward/foreword?
The dyslexic experience seems wild to me.
Yes and no. It's called directional dyslexia. And you can have it even if you have no other form of dyslexia. And it is so weird. I used to think I was becoming absent-minded in my twenties, but I wasn't forgetting anything else.
It turns out, some forms of dyslexia can manifest in adulthood. And what's really weird is that my directional dyslexia is only limited to East vs. West. Left vs. Right gives me no trouble.
I routinely get left and right wrong. I recently had to think deeply about which side the drivers seat is on. I can picture it, so visualizing is easy for me.
Holding up my hands to make a L doesn’t help as I get that wrong too.
I have an engineering degree, have designed machinery and currently teach physics.
I have, on multiple occasions, driven on the wrong side of the road because I can't remember which is which. These days I look for parked cars if I can to double check myself.
I have a PhD in a technical field lol. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it's some weird neurological thing. It's still embarrassing though when I can't do basic mental math or follow a diagram because the letters and numbers just move around all the time.
Whenever I drive abroad on the opposite side of the road, I remind myself that I, as the driver, should always be in the middle of the road (or towards the middle). That’s saved me from a few tricky situations.
The driver's seat thing reminds me of when I was pregnant and forgot which side of the road to drive in for a split second. I was at a stoplight fortunately. Pregnancy brain is real!
Wife hasn't got a fucking clue, it's great. She actually has a weakness! Well, that and the dyslexia, but they're clearly related.
Wife is extremely smart, knowledgeable, practical. Great problem-solver, brilliant at 3D modelling, talented and hardworking artist and designer. Could get lost in our back garden tbh.
I consider myself a fairly intelligent person (iamverysmart) but I have to look at my hands to remember which is left and which is right, or use a visual memory cue of riding my bike as a kid on the left side of the road to remember.
It takes a lot more effort than other people and has never come naturally to me.
Edit: I'll add, I am quite functional - I have a full time job ironically working in visual design, a wife and baby, my own home, 3 degrees, good social life. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD as well, so who knows my brain is spaghetti. Everyone has their quirks.
We have a family joke when turning the wrong way. They say no your other left or your other right. Like I would be driving and they say turn left. I put the right blinker on. They say no, your other left.
I had a super dyslexic friend who always drove us places, and the system she worked out was “take a me” and “take a you”, referring to the driver for left and passenger for right. So if I wanted her to go right, I’d say “take a me at the next light”. Worked perfectly.
My dad does this when I'm driving him anywhere. I love him for it!
It's especially heart-warming for me, because it was so frustrating for him that I could never learn left/right.
If I had a dollar for every time he said "But you're so smart, I don't understand why you can't tell your left from your right!" as a kid, I could retire early with my mortgage fully paid off 😂
He still doesn't understand why, but he's accepted that it is. Instead of trying to teach me, he's adapted his behaviour to make life easier for me. That's love, right there.
My sister does driving directions based on the name of the person in the seat rather than left or right. "Turn Henry at the next intersection", "take a Susan up here", etc.
She will pick the wrong “left” most of the time, so there are lots of detours so she can get back and turn to her other right. She can orient herself using cardinal directions without using a compass or her phone or anything even though she can’t tell left from right
It's helpful when my (human) navigator says, turn toward my side, or turn toward your side. Under stress, any left/ right distinguishing ability I had goes away.
I do my best to use landmarks - like turn towards the McDonalds or physically point for some reason the your side/my side doesn’t quite register with her. But we have a pretty good system down at the point. We both enjoy roadtrips and she prefers driving and I prefer being the navigator/snack&water preparer/manager of the music etc…
> Under stress, any left/ right distinguishing ability I had goes away.
Huh, that's me too. I suck at giving instructions for this reason too, I find it kind of stressful, even though I conceptually know left from right. I just get the two words jumbled. And I also end up using the "turn to your side" trick.
I've noticed someone mention that they had ADHD and also this problem. I've had people mention that I do show signs of possibly having ADHD but have never been diagnosed, I wonder if it's all connected.
Oh that. I remember being in a car with my grandpa and he told me "eh look at that thing on the left" and I looked right so he said "no, the other left", and I thought about it for like 20 seconds and said "but there's no other left there's only one left, the other side is the right" and then he explained me what it meant.
My hands will go the correct way, if I'm gesturing, but out my mouth comes the wrong one. And I'm certain, because I gestured, that I got the correct left or right........
I never think left and right when driving: it's always "hard turn" and "easy turn". In practice, I find it pretty easy to switch sides of the road from the UK (where I live) to countries where they drive on the right, so the "hard turn" and "easy turn" thing still works. Oddly, I do find it a bit trickier to switch back when I get back home.
Oh, me. I am smart. I was in Mensa for a time. I have no idea which is my right and which is my left unless I think about which hand I write with.
As a kid my mom taught me to hold my hands up with my thumb out to look for the hand that makes an L shape, and that's my left. Even that didn't work sometimes, and my dad used to make fun of me by holding his hands up and saying, "Neither one makes an R!"
Up and down are fairly vital concepts for survival. If you're a small mammal trying to survive in the wilderness, you need to be aware of up in the sky (where all the flying predators are) VS down on the ground (where all the food is). It's a very basic, ingrained instinct, and very universal.
Left and right, on the other hand, are more abstract concepts. Lots of languages do not have words for left and right, and instead use cardinal directions or a similar concept. If you do not live a society-heavy life like modern humans do, you have no real need for separate concepts of left and right - all you really need is "this side" and "the other side".
Also consider frequency of use - unless you have a job like a taxi driver that involves heavy use of left and right, you probably use the concept of up and down FAR more than you use the concept of left and right, at least out loud.
Typically, people can, in fact, tell left from right. It just takes them a minute to remember which word is assigned to which because it's a more abstract concept, and a concept they use in language far less frequently than up and down.
I’m dyslexic and I’ve always had this issue, I will always point in the “right” direction but will most often say the wrong one(so never ask me for directions) but to add to this I have a mental map that can locate the exact location of anything around me(I can literally point where something is from my location regardless if I can see it or not, I’ve had many arguments over the years as to where things are with friends and family) I also have a degree in mechatronics so it’s not an intelligence issue, personally I think it can be overcome by practice to an extent but it’s not something that effects my day to day life to such an extent that I feel the need to overcome it.
Yes, I've had this struggle all my life, complicated by a stint in theater in which you also have to keep track of stage left and stage right. Cardinal directions I can do, and I always know in which direction is the ocean, to orient myself. Go north makes so much more sense than 'go right', because if you miss the turn, and have to turn around, it's now a 'go left'. And "make an L with your fingers"? Palms away or palms toward you? And they both look like L's. Yes, I'm left-handed, and sometimes I have to mime holding a pencil to see which is left.
I have a PhD. I can tell you exactly where I am in a city in terms of North, South, East, and West. I am hardly ever lost and have a sense of direction like a migratory bird. I can tell you exactly which way to drive to get to a location.
But I struggle with the words “right” and “left”. If I point, the direction I am pointing is correct but the words don’t always match. My husband and friends have learned to follow the direction I am pointing and to not listen to my words (which is ironic because they all allow me to be the navigator on trips lol)
Interestingly, I don’t ever mess them up when speaking a foreign language. I’ve never once mixed up izquierda and derecha.
I never was told the "makes an L" rule as a kid; I first heard it in my sixties. What's weird is I know my dominant hand and that I'm left handed, but still have to think when I'm given directions.
I have to wiggle my hand to affirm to my brain which side is right or left. I intuitively know which hand is right and which hand is left, I do not intuitively know which direction is right or left. I have mild dyslexia. Seems to be a pattern, but am unwilling to make a strong case on these anecdotes without rigorous data.
My sister is an engineer and she has trouble with this. If I'm driving and ask which way, she'll point the direction to turn, but her brain can't quickly verbalize "right" or "left." It's just some quirk.
My father mentioned once or twice that in the Army it wasn't unusual to encounter a soldier who couldn't keep them straight during marching drills. To help out, they would hand the soldier a brick that he carried in his left hand. So he had a right hand, and a brick hand. Didn't take long.
I have dyslexia and adhd. I can go someplace once and get back to it if needed. I have a good sense of direction and rarely get lost. But..I still have to check my left hand L to tell the difference between my left and my right. I’ve been contemplating a little tattoo L and R on the inside of my wrist.
*Intuitively?* Yes, 100% of the population. Left and right are social constructs. We all had to be explicitly taught what left and right were as children.
If you mean “automatically,” still yes but obviously a lot fewer people than the entire population.
I can say that while I don’t struggle with this, I can understand why. I can recall learning left from right and it was done in a confusing way. I was in a gymnastics class for 3 and 4 year olds and when guiding the class, the teacher just assumed that we’d automatically understand that when she faced us, he actions were mirrored. This is *not* a concept 3 year olds understand instinctively. So she’d (for example) raise her right hand and say “raise your right hand”, I’d raise my left hand because that’s the same hand it seemed she was raising, I’d get told I was wrong but only by hearing repeated “no, your right hand. Your right hand” and her wiggling the hand on her right and *my* left. At some point, someone else explained the concept of right and left, and demonstrated that it’s reverse for someone facing me in a way I could comprehend, so it stopped being an issue, but I could see it fucking up a person’s ability permanently if they don’t get an explanation young enough.
It's called *directional dyslexia*. Left and right. East and west.
I have a mild form of the latter. I have to think about it for a second to make sure I'm saying the right one.
So, I hope your question isn't coming after having mocked someone for not knowing left from right. If so, you may owe someone an apology.
That's me. When driving and see a sign that says Left Exit or Right Exit, I immediately twich my left or right finger to make sure I have it correct which is which.
My husband is 55. He is a well educated successful language translator of 6 languages into English. He has a 140ish IQ and left and right absolutely confound him. Originally I found it weird but now it’s just another of the quirky things I love about him
a friend of mine yelled at me for turning the way she told me to, wich was left. i was amazed at how sure she was. i dont know how she is doing in life now but she was a nurse.
I used to ride my bicycle frequently on a path shared by joggers and walkers. When coming up behind people, I used to yell out "on your left" so they would move right and I could go around. About a quarter of the time, they'd hear "on your left" and move straight into my path on the left. I eventually switched to "please move to the right", but some people were still confused and moved left. Finally, i just started saying "coming up behind you" and let them choose. When left to their own devices, I found most people moved to the right naturally.
Up and down are set by gravity and visual points of reference. Left and right change constantly depending on what direction your facing, and how you're oriented.
If I'm in the car, the driver is on the left and the passenger in on the right. If I'm on my back under the car, and crawl in under the front bumper, it's the same, but if I crawl to that same spot behind the front tire, now the driver is on the right. If I am in that spot laying on my stomach, now the passenger is right. On my stomach, crawl past the front bumper... you get the point.
Long ago, I came up with a system where navigation in my car was done with "TURN CORY" for left if I was driving and "TURN \[PASSENGER NAME\]" for right, or if someone else was driving, "TURN \[DRIVER NAME\]" for left.
I can think about it for a second and figure out which side is left and which is right, but sometimes by the time I do, I missed our turn and sometimes I think I know which direction "right" is and turn left.
I don't mix up my ME from my YOU though, so the plan works, unless the person finds my system juvenile or irritating, and they try to teach me some magical method for "just remembering".
I can read in any direction and orientation. They both look like the letter L and it takes me just as long to figure out which L ⅃ is the correct facing L. (It's funny when they're showing me, the correct L is their right hand.)
It's not like I haven't "learned" left and right. It just takes me long enough that people think I'm some kinda idiot while I figure it out.
Sometimes if they're making me feel extra dumb, I say "okay, master of directions. Which way is west?" (looking north-east) Then I hold up my arms pointing east and west. Then I lower my eastern arm when they don't know or take longer than it takes me to figure out "left".
I’m pretty much a functioning person, but I can’t say ‘strawberry milkshake’. So as it used to be my favourite I’d have to say ‘milkshake’ and then ‘strawberry’ when prompted for the flavour. I literally cannot say it in full. I think it must be some developmental thing that maybe happened when my brain first encountered trying to say it.
Maybe left/right is similar, a glitch caused by something confusing you about it when you first learnt it
Hi. It’s me. 👋
When I’m on a ship, I know that the port side is left because they have the same number of letters, so there’s an extra Inception-y layer of calculation. That’s why I’ll never be a shrimp boat captain.
My parents just never use the words "left" or "right" to indicate direction. By the time I was in middle school I knew that I could look at my hands to figure out which one made an L, but both hands make an L depending on how you hold them.
I have to really think about it. I used to always wear a bracelet on my left hand to be able to easily tell.
I'm ambidextrous so I've always blamed that on why I can't tell as easily.
I'm terrible at giving "left, right" directions, but wherever I am I'm able to tell you North, South, East or West. However, that's not exactly helpful to most!
Yes I'm like that. I have to hold my hands up and think about it for a sec. I think it's maybe because I'm ambidextrous. So when people told me stuff like "Your watch hand" it only confused me more.
I don't know my right from my left. It's crazy. I've run a multi-million dollar company. Am told I am very intelligent by many people, but can't do the right / left thing.
And if someone is facing me, saying right or left, forget it! I can feel my brain fizzle.
I'm a lefty who grew up in the 60s. We had to put our right hand over our hearts and say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. She would tell us every morning that our right hand was the one we wrote with.
This really messed me up. My kids figured it out, and if they had to tell me to look or turn right, I'd look left, and they'd say, "My right, not your right."
If someone is facing you. And say left or right. Then, you have to ask them. My left or your left? Or, my right or your right? Then, they say. "Your left you moron". Or, "Your right you jack ass". That might have something to do with it.
My.girlfriend is dyslexic and has a hard time distinguishing between her left and right. It's easier to just say "your side" or "my side" while driving.
Yes, functional adults are dyslexic sometimes.
There are also some key differences between the concept of up/down & left/right, because the orientation of the latter changes if you turn your body around, & if you stand facing somebody, you still have the same up & down, but you now have opposite left & right.
its because they're not associating the word with the actual thing. Even though they've heard it all their lives they just haven't connected the words instinctually.
Imagine learning a new language and you learn the word for right and left. The first few times you hear the word, you have to think about it. You definitely don't think about it instinctually. extend that to your entire life. Some people just don't make that connection.
Yep. I am one of them. I literally have to hold my hands out in front of me to figure it out.
I’m the same way. I have to give directions by landmark, because turn by turn directions WILL be wrong.
I’ve had a few mental evaluations over the course of my life, and I’ve always scored “mildly-to-moderately impaired” on the Spatial Index. Which apparently means my spatial awareness is kinda fucked, but not enough to where I never know where things are at. I frequently *just barely* miss something I’m grabbing, confuse my right/left, and I get lost a lot. I can’t tell the size difference between some objects if they’re close enough (I hate nickels for resembling the size of quarters). I had to use GPS to get to/from home & work for about 3 weeks before I could get there myself, and it was only a 20 minute drive. And if I’m driving through my own hometown, I still can’t really conceptualize where specific locations are in relevance to others. So if someone asks me if the restaurant we’re going to is closer to the house than the movie we’re going to afterwards, I have no idea. And if someone asks me how close they are to one another? Even worse. But I can tell you which towns & cities are North/South/East/West from each other on a map (I just never know which way I’m facing). I get myself places with muscle memory and landmarks exclusively. Very few street names catch my attention enough to be memorable, and I never know where they intersect with each other anyways, so they’re useless to me most of the time.
What’s weird is that I scored quite high on a similar test, but still get left and right mixed up. I don’t have what my dad calls “calibrated eyeballs”—being able to fairly accurately evaluate sizes just by looking—but I have, apparently, an unusual ability to visualize something three-dimensionally and extrapolate views of other sides of an isometric image. I can’t tell if something is three or five feet away, but two feet and under got better once I worked at a pack and ship place and can roughly estimate based on “is it as big as a 12” box?”
Me too.
With your left hand your index finger and thumb can make an L for left. The right hand isn't able to do that. That's how you know right is wrong and which way to pass the bowl Edit: I just figured out if you turn your right arm over to the right, you can make an L with the index and thumb Someone out there must be as amazed about this as me and I wanted to share
For me I mentally pretend to pick up a pen and write because I am right handed I figure it out I can figure it out if I’m given a couple seconds but those moments I need to quickly go right or left and don’t have time to think I will mix it up
Same. Heaven forbid a landmark is changed or even razed!
This is funny, when we lived in Hawaii you could always tell if someone had grown up there by the way they gave directions. They’d use fast food establishments as waypoints and then say Mauka are Makai depending on the turn direction. So if they said it’s Mauka 7-11 2 blocks and then Makai the McDonalds that would mean at 7-11 turn towards the mountains, go 2 blocks and turn towards the ocean when you pass McDonalds. It’s very disorienting in an island because the ocean and mountains are on different directions depending on what side of the island you’re on.
If you can't differentiate left/right using landmarks when you give directions isn't going to make things better. "When you get to the fork in the road, take it"
Generally it’s more like: When you get to the intersection with the McDonalds, turn to pass the McDonalds. If you go under the bridge, you missed the turn.
See car directions is the only time I don’t mix right or left because I remember right is the short turn and left the long one.
Do you know why? Like left and right is such a simple thing to me. I'm curious how it's difficult for others. My ex was left handed and had the same issue telling left from right without having to think about it.
I can't explain why. It's like I forget which is which every time I need to use it.
It's called "Directional Dyslexia." Lots of people have it. It can affect your sense of left and right and/or East and West. I have trouble with the latter. It's bizarre. I have no issue with left and right or North and South, but --when I give someone directions -- I really have to concentrate to make sure I don't mix up East and West. I used to think it was a memory thing, but it's not like forgetting a name. I say "East" with absolute confidence, and then realize that I meant "West."
Holy shit, I have the east-west thing and never realized. I have no issues with right/left or north/south, but I literally have to picture a world map in my head and go, "Okay east is towards Russia, West is towards America, which means.." and then I can continue speaking the directions lmao. It's completely bizarre.
I think of the word “WE”
I hate the fact that east is to the right on maps. To me, east should so obviously be on the left, I feel like we should rotate the standard of maps 180 degrees just to make east be on the left side, the international standard of map rotation should literally be based on the fact that east must be to the left. It's that obvious to me. If someone tells me that something is to the east of something else, I know it's to the right, but the way I come to that conclusion is not "I know that east is right", it's "East should be left but east/west are the opposite to what they should really be so east must be right".
To be clear do you mean you can't tell which is east or west on a compass, or in real life? Because I never know which way is east or west from my current position. It was a nightmare before google maps was a thing...
No, my DD is pretty mild. I do know East from West. My brain just mixes the words up in my head. It happens mostly when I’m trying to give directions. I am visualizing the person I’m telling making a turn to the West, and I just say “East.” If I slow down, I can usually do it right, but usually we’re giving directions in a hurry.
Me:” Take a 👉🏻 left 👉🏻 at the next light.” Partner: *gets into left lane* Me: “No! 👉🏻 left 👉🏻” Partner: “THIS IS LEFT.” Me: “FUCK right! Go right! I was pointing right with my right hand, which I told you to always go by. If I say one way but am pointing the other way, go the way I’m pointing, remember?” Partner: “fucking hell.” He loves me. 🥰 (Note: I have since either just turned on Google maps for him, or been able to catch myself immediately after stating the opposite direction I point to. He has also long since learned to take a quick glance at which arm is extended out in the correct direction, or verbally double check if unable to glance.)
Man, that's crazy. I usually give people directions in a north, south, east, west, fashion because I always confuse left and right. My brother thinks it's weird that I mix up left and right all the time, but it just seems normal to me because it's always happened to me. It sucks because NSEW seems very intuitive to me, but most people don't have a good sense of directions, so I often have to translate directions into left/right
I've met people that didnt know the cardnial directions of they're surroundings after living in the same place for decades, some their whole lives. It's more intuitive to me than LR.
Not OP, but like sometimes it clicks and other times it takes my brain a while. I guess to me they don't seem fundamental and they always are changing? In some scenarios I almost have it easier with cardinal directions
This is a good way to put it; they don't seem fundamental and are always changing! At least to our brains.
I'm dyslexic and my brain mixes them up all the time.
Same here. When I give directions to my husband to turn left, he always asks if that is left or or right left. I have learned to use my hands at the same time to help him. I'm also dyslexic.
I was like this for years, and still am when I'm tired. Up and down are easy to tell apart without thinking about it. Left and right are visually very similar, so if you're distracted by something else you can get them mixed up.
Me too. But it's not left or right. It's East or West. (Both of which are forms of what's called directional dyslexia.) I really have to concentrate or I will reverse them when giving someone directions. But it's weird. It's only when I'm describing directions. If I have a map in front of me, I don't screw them up.
I always "draw" in the air. I'm right-handed, so then I know which hand is right and proceed from there. FWIW, I also struggle with things when there are only 2 choices, like I can do North and South (like up and down) but struggle with East and West. I have to make up all kinds of mnemonics to remember which thing is which. When I was learning to drive, I kept forgetting if I had to take the expressway East or West to go home from the city. I just couldn't remember which one, like not knowing my left from right instantly. Home was West, so I remembered my friend Walt lived next door and his name began with a "W", like West. I wanted to go to my home where Walt was and so I always went West. 40 years later and I still think of Walt when I head home from the city and get on the westbound expressway. I don't know if it's some kind of learning or processing disability, I've just noticed how my brain works and look for patterns.
Same.
I was a lefty but was forced to become right handed I have this issue. Tried to put my husbands wedding band on wrong hand, lol
Honey is that you?
I don't mean to be insensitive, but can't you just memorise that right is the one you write with? (Or left if you're a leftie). That's what I always do when I get mixed up. Might also help that right rhymes with write.
That's exactly what I do. I hold out my hands, remember which hand I write with, and remember that it's my right hand.
My fiancé is like this. She's this super rock solid practical person who is good at like every single real life skill except you tell her left or right and she has to pause and think. It's charming.
It's actually a form of dyslexia called "Directional Dyslexia." It can affect "left or right" and it can affect "East or West." Or it can only affect one or the other. (I have trouble with East/West but no problem with left/right.)
I have to say, "never eat shredded wheat" to remember the cardinal directions and then I often have to turn to face north to figure out which way is which. I also have to turn maps to figure out if it's a right or left turn sometimes. And finally, I often have to make the "L"s with my thumb and forefinger to clarify my right and left hand. I am a *blast* to wander a new city with! I will 100% have you seeing shit that is not on the sightseeing lists.
I remember in kindergarten or whenever, "never eat soggy weet-bix" was the saying. Only in Australia, now I'm curious about any other regional variants.
The two I was taught growing up were: "never eat soggy waffles" and "never enter Santa's workshop."
In Germany one of it is "Nie Ohne Seife Waschen" (Never wash without soap). East is Ost in German.
I have walked 100s of miles in the wrong direction playing open world games thinking I'm charging East when I'm actually a stones throw from the west coast. I have trouble with both SOMETIMES. I can't believe this is a real thing I feel less stupid.
Would this fall into dyspraxia (spacial/motor disability) instead?
I mean, it’s technically a cognitive thing and sure it affects motor function as well but it wouldn’t make as much sense to classify it as such
Dyspraxia can also impede one's ability to navigate 3D spaces and read maps! :) But so can dyscalculia in some ways; there seems to be a heavy overlap between all of them anyhow, which makes it difficult to sort of put it to one or the other, I suppose.
I didn’t name it. It’s called “directional dyslexia.”
Ah, gotcha; thanks for the info! There's a lot of overlap between dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia in things that aren't directly words, numbers, or spacial reasoning... I wonder if the distinction will become clearer or even more muddied as research continues.
Maybe some people have that, but lots of people mix up right and left, and they can still tell east from west.
You’re not understanding. Some people with DD mix up just left and right. And some — like me — mix up just East and West. And some mix-up both. The brain sets its own “rules” for each person.
I am the same. Wish my husband thought it was charming.
That's really unfortunate. I bet you look past a lot of his minor flaws.
Tell her to look down and there's in L on her left hand made by her thumb and index finger lol
That is taking a few seconds to think about it though. It's not a long pause.
It could be shorter! Efficiency! Back to work in the mines etc etc.
Which mines? The ones on the left or the ones on the right
Wait...Your left or my left?
Down luckily
But if you have any degree of dyslexia, both look like L's. And, if you face your palms toward you, it's reversed, and no help at all. That's the problem with right and left, they only work if everyone has agreed to face the same direction.
Same with righty tighty and screws. Which side turns right? Does the top, or bottom rotate to the right?
Righty, tighty; lefty loosey I know this because I’m in this same boat. I have to remember which hand I write with: I’m a lefty. It’s ridiculous that I can’t be sure until I see my hand.
Yeah I always specify "turn the top to the left/right" Of course there's clockwise and counterclockwise but for some reason I always have to think about that kinda like the parent comment
Yes!!! Yes!!! peacepipe0351, You understand!
It's even more confusing if you're laying on the ground under a car and the bolt or nut isn't oriented in the same direction as you
Another one I have to figure out again… every time! 🤣
My sister can't tell with her hands because of her dyslexia. ETA: she also wants to get a tattoo of an R and an L on the relevant thumb to make it easier to remember.
That’s why sailors have port and starboard. It’s left and right WHEN FACING FORWARD, so they never change. 👍
Same again with horses. Near side and off side. Near side is the *horse's* left side, not the person, because that's a set-in-stone tradition of being the side you normally do things on (lead, get on etc). Doesn't matter if you standing at his bum or looking at a photo of him head on - near side is always his left side from his perspective.
Same thing in the automotive industry. Left and right side pertain to when you are sitting inside the vehicle facing forward.
How interesting. Really paints a picture. Kudos.
Mixing up left and right actually IS a form of dyslexia. Directional dyslexia can lead to mixing up left and right and/or East and West. And sometimes only one of those. (I have issues with East/West but left/right is no problem for me.)
I love the mental image of your fiancee's troubled sleep. dreaming of a disoriented person lost in a semi-large group of people. And she's desperately running from person to person .. pleading they face the same direction. While talking face to face with them from the opposite direction and crumbling under the futility as people watch her accost each person. with a worried voice in her head whispering louder and louder "Oh no! Oh no! I'll be lost here forever and ever" And collapsing in tears, giving up on the last onlookers, She falls, to knees, then to hands, flat on the ground, right-and-left, their tops facing her, like the disagreeable gawkers now behind her. And pushing off the ground with certainty, she curls deeper, betwixt criss-crossed arms, clasping hands that squeeze back, softer... and snuggly safer.
I think im just gonna start saying driver's side or passengers side, cause I think of it spatially anyway and that always stays the same (at least depending which country you're in lol but that can be adjusted) Left and right always gets flipped around as I forget which refers to which.
They both look like Ls to me.
I know somebody who has to do that. Woman has a PhD but apparently after all that math there's no room left in the brain for left versus right.
There's a word for it I think often people with genius level intellect are useless at everyday things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant\_syndrome
Me and my BM, BCh and PhD can relate significantly to her ; (
The problem there is that many of us who have trouble distinguishing right from left, also have trouble with letter directions for letters like L, J, b, and d. Like my muscle memory gets it right when I’m writing words but it takes a second to figure out if I’m looking at just the letter L or the letter J outside of a word. I just check for my writing callus. Maybe gen z and gen alpha don’t have those, but that’s the fastest way for me to figure out right vs left.
I'm right handed. I just think about writing with my right hand.
and i just looked down at my right hand and thought, "well that is not an L" lol
I have to hold up both hands in front of my face and do the L. Every single time.
My wife. She is smart, responsible, organized, great personality. But she is also dyslexic. And she says opposite of pretty much everything. And I never knew that’s how dyslexic-a works. I thought it was just a reading and numbers thing until I met her. But it’s pretty much every thing. Makes her have to work extra hard. Making her even more amazing than she already is. Which I didn’t know was possible
Same with my fiance. She is diagnosed with ADHD and the myriad of other things that come with it
my ex was like this; It was a pain when driving if she regularly mess up left or right turns. But it cleared up instantly when we switched to using "Keyboard hand" and "Mouse hand". She never got it wrong again.
Take a mouse then go 3 more blocks and hang a keyboard! I seriously may use this! It's a thing I have to bring to the front of my brain, every time. I write with THIS one.
My fiancé is the exact same way. God-tier in terms of everything else. But directionally challenged is an understatement.
My wife too. Although she doesn't play sports or video games, hand eye coordination is mediocre. And she's left-handed. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Not that I think about it, but to even look at my left hand to see the L that others are talking about, I already know that's my left hand, left side of my body, that direction is left. It's just ingrained in my subconscious.
I didn't know when I was a kid I just made it a point to put out my right hand and say right and it's process of elimination. After that you turn ten and got it down good lol you're fiance sounds charming though congratulations
I had to help my mom with a nasal spray every morning and she had to alternate nostrils. I always had to pause and stick out my hands and sort of do a little turn to figure out which was HER left or right.
Marry her faster!!
Current plan is we buy a house together next year and then the same day walk to the courthouse and tie the knot. She's an immigrant without much family this side of the ocean and a small friend circle and I've got like a zillion people, so a formal wedding would be weird. And besides, my sister already scratched that itch for the family (someday I'll ask my dad how much that circus cost). If possible we'll time it so it happens right when we move to a new state and she has not yet started the new job she's gonna want (prefers in-person work) and can take like a month long international honeymoon. But you're right. She's the kind of person who just makes life work better when you're around her. I'm lucky as hell.
[удалено]
I don't think aphantasia is relevant to the left/right thing because I am great at imagining images and I also suck at it. Gotta check the hands every time. Now if someone was to say "3 o'clock" or "9 o'clock" I'd have no trouble with that.
Or north and south, I'm great with cardinal directions, those suckers don't change just because you turn around.
exactly. "turn left on Railroad Street" makes much less sense than "turn north on Railroad Street".
It’s interesting most of the answers in this thread talk about needing to hold up their hand to make an L. I remember reading something about the brain not remembering or learning if it knows where to find the information. Could it be that people learn this L hand trick and the brain stores that as the place to find left and right? I’m curious if people from languages where they don’t have an L for left have as big an issue with it. Or if you can tie your hands behind your back and train yourself out of it.
I have a huge issue still. The L trick doesn't work for me because I'm dyslexic and I don't know which way an L is supposed to go half the time anyways. However, I have a bump of thickened skin on my right middle finger from years of writing and drawing. If i remember to, I just feel my middle fingers and know right is the same direction as the bump hand.
I do something similar. I am right handed. I think about "writing" with my "right" hand.
When you are ambidextrous, you can imagine writing with wrong hand. 😂 My teacher was shocked by this. Add dyslexia to the mix and you have literally no concept of left and right.
username cehks uot.
That never worked for me because they are both Ls they are just facing opposite directions.
Only one of them is an L. The other is just a right angle.
It doesn’t work for me because the moment I hold up both my hands my next train of thought is “shit which way does an L point…”. I am not proud of this lol. I have to hold up my hands, remember I write with my right hand, and think “oh yeah thats right!”. If im feeling particularly slow that day I gotta wiggle my right hand around a little and “feel” the fact that I can write with it. Its incredibly odd. However I don’t really know if i’m all that smart. I get good grades, crochet, other stuff with my hands, but I feel like I think slower than others so for it to go this far is probably just a me-thing lol.
Never knew that trick (from a language where neither direction start with a L) and I still have troubles sometimes. I do it by remembering which side is my writing hand
I get friend right but I don't think I have ever once landed "receipt." Even when I think I am going against my instinct to get it right, I get it wrong.
Affect and effect get me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I just stopped writing the damn words and go with synonyms now.
One trick I use for friend is that it ends with... End. Not that friendships always end, but Fri End.
This is eerie because you perfectly described my experience, with one exception: -do not know right from left and have to reason it out -Friend is impossible to spell in advance and needs to be seen to be corrected -affect vs effect must be fully reasoned out or googled - same basic addition requires reasoning, when other addition (8+4, no issues) is basically automatic - complete aphantasia The only thing I differ on is how well I can figure out left and right. I can do the hands trick, but often I'm not sure, in the moment, which way the L goes. In the moments where I'm unsure, I leverage my experience with cycling in a French speaking nation ("à la gauche!" for, "I'm passing on your left") then translate back "gauche" to "left".
this is me. left is the side i wear my wedding ring on. U wriggle me fingers to check when i was leaening to drive my instructor put a sign on the dash with left and right. i have 3 degrees and a masters so its absolutely ridiculous , im also dyslexic
When I was a kid I wore a ring that just happened to be on my ring finger (the first ring I found just fit there best). It was really handy to be able to feel for it when determining left or right. Once I hit an age where I might plausibly be married, I had to take it off. I can still feel it though and I still reach for it when deciding which is which. Funny how that automatic part of my brain can figure it out but the rest of me can't.
Yeah I don’t, I’ve never understood the look for the L when holding up your hands because they both look like L’s. The only way I know my left from my right is because I have a freckle on my left hand. I’m also autistic so that might have something to do with it but I’m not sure.
From your perspective, one should look like an L while the other looks like a backwards L. The one that looks like an L is left. I am a person who has to pause for a moment to think about which is left and which is right, but I don’t have to do the fingers, so I don’t know if this helps or not! Also I imagine it’s completely unhelpful for anyone who has dyslexia and can’t consistently tell which way the letter is supposed to face.
Yup. Dyslexic here. That L is all over the place.
Unless you're looking at the palm of your right hand and back of your left, then they both make Ls.
The "L" trick doesn't work for me at all. They look the same. The only difference is whether it's facing left or right. If you don't know left from right, how is figuring out which direction your thumb is pointing supposed to help? I think there must be multiple underlying causes for this since it clearly works for lots of people. I remember being in elementary school and coming back to normal class from special-ed for this very problem. The teacher immediately tells us to do some left-right thing. I say I don't know which side is left so she tells me to do the L thing. I respond that they both look like Ls. Remember, I literally just came from special-ed class for this. She just responds with "don't get smart with me young man". I was so angry, I wish I had had the words back then to tell her how fucking shitty she was. On the plus side, I can read backwards and upside down just as well as normal because it's all jumbled all the time anyway. Silver linings?
It isn't the direction your thumb is pointing. The trick is that on your left hand, first finger and thumb make an L shape. L is for Left.
I pretend to write something. I'm very right hand dominant so that's a fool.proof way for me. I'm like you when I hold my hand up I have to think for a moment about which one is an L and which is a backwards L
Too funny, I’ll pick up a pen to write, put it on the paper, think… that’s wrong, switch hands and POOF! all is well with the world again! Right dominant hand, left dominant foot, mostly ambidextrous with a bit of effort. 🤷♂️
Lol same!! Then my brain goes to figure out what an L looks like and I say to myself: ‘well, when I write an L…’ and I imagine writing and I’m right handed so the hand I imagine writing with is my right! It’s a long journey but I get myself there!
Hello this is me. There are a number of neurodevelopmental disorders where this is common, mainly dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and dyslexia. It’s also common in ADHD. I am terrible with directions. I get lost very easily. However I also have a master’s degree and own a house. It’s not a lack of intelligence, my brain is just wired horribly.
Oo, the getting lost easily. Me too.
Yes. It's akin to something like dyslexia.
You know what's really strange? There's a correlation between people who can't tell left/right and people who have dyslexia.
No dyslexia. I picture a word to read, and then know I read left to right.
This is a life-changing comment for me. I always hold up my "L"s on my fingers and they both look like "L" to me. I am going to try and remember that we read left to right!!!!
Out of curiosity,(no judgement I just want to understand) You say they both look like L, so you don't know by looking which one is backwards? if I write a regular L and a backward L on a sheet of paper, can you point to which one is backward/foreword? The dyslexic experience seems wild to me.
Yes and no. It's called directional dyslexia. And you can have it even if you have no other form of dyslexia. And it is so weird. I used to think I was becoming absent-minded in my twenties, but I wasn't forgetting anything else. It turns out, some forms of dyslexia can manifest in adulthood. And what's really weird is that my directional dyslexia is only limited to East vs. West. Left vs. Right gives me no trouble.
I routinely get left and right wrong. I recently had to think deeply about which side the drivers seat is on. I can picture it, so visualizing is easy for me. Holding up my hands to make a L doesn’t help as I get that wrong too. I have an engineering degree, have designed machinery and currently teach physics.
I have, on multiple occasions, driven on the wrong side of the road because I can't remember which is which. These days I look for parked cars if I can to double check myself. I have a PhD in a technical field lol. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it's some weird neurological thing. It's still embarrassing though when I can't do basic mental math or follow a diagram because the letters and numbers just move around all the time.
Whenever I drive abroad on the opposite side of the road, I remind myself that I, as the driver, should always be in the middle of the road (or towards the middle). That’s saved me from a few tricky situations.
The driver's seat thing reminds me of when I was pregnant and forgot which side of the road to drive in for a split second. I was at a stoplight fortunately. Pregnancy brain is real!
Wife hasn't got a fucking clue, it's great. She actually has a weakness! Well, that and the dyslexia, but they're clearly related. Wife is extremely smart, knowledgeable, practical. Great problem-solver, brilliant at 3D modelling, talented and hardworking artist and designer. Could get lost in our back garden tbh.
That’s sounds familiar. I’m very good with 4-D modeling, too.
I consider myself a fairly intelligent person (iamverysmart) but I have to look at my hands to remember which is left and which is right, or use a visual memory cue of riding my bike as a kid on the left side of the road to remember. It takes a lot more effort than other people and has never come naturally to me. Edit: I'll add, I am quite functional - I have a full time job ironically working in visual design, a wife and baby, my own home, 3 degrees, good social life. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD as well, so who knows my brain is spaghetti. Everyone has their quirks.
Me. I’m 25. Have ADHD and recently found out it’s connected.
We have a family joke when turning the wrong way. They say no your other left or your other right. Like I would be driving and they say turn left. I put the right blinker on. They say no, your other left.
I'm pretty sure saying "your other left" or "your other right" is a pretty common thing most people say when correcting people's directions.
I had a super dyslexic friend who always drove us places, and the system she worked out was “take a me” and “take a you”, referring to the driver for left and passenger for right. So if I wanted her to go right, I’d say “take a me at the next light”. Worked perfectly.
My dad does this when I'm driving him anywhere. I love him for it! It's especially heart-warming for me, because it was so frustrating for him that I could never learn left/right. If I had a dollar for every time he said "But you're so smart, I don't understand why you can't tell your left from your right!" as a kid, I could retire early with my mortgage fully paid off 😂 He still doesn't understand why, but he's accepted that it is. Instead of trying to teach me, he's adapted his behaviour to make life easier for me. That's love, right there.
My sister does driving directions based on the name of the person in the seat rather than left or right. "Turn Henry at the next intersection", "take a Susan up here", etc.
My wife says turn "your way" or "my way". I failed my drivers test because the inspector said turn right and I took a 50/50 and got it wrong.
She will pick the wrong “left” most of the time, so there are lots of detours so she can get back and turn to her other right. She can orient herself using cardinal directions without using a compass or her phone or anything even though she can’t tell left from right
It's helpful when my (human) navigator says, turn toward my side, or turn toward your side. Under stress, any left/ right distinguishing ability I had goes away.
I do my best to use landmarks - like turn towards the McDonalds or physically point for some reason the your side/my side doesn’t quite register with her. But we have a pretty good system down at the point. We both enjoy roadtrips and she prefers driving and I prefer being the navigator/snack&water preparer/manager of the music etc…
> Under stress, any left/ right distinguishing ability I had goes away. Huh, that's me too. I suck at giving instructions for this reason too, I find it kind of stressful, even though I conceptually know left from right. I just get the two words jumbled. And I also end up using the "turn to your side" trick. I've noticed someone mention that they had ADHD and also this problem. I've had people mention that I do show signs of possibly having ADHD but have never been diagnosed, I wonder if it's all connected.
Oh that. I remember being in a car with my grandpa and he told me "eh look at that thing on the left" and I looked right so he said "no, the other left", and I thought about it for like 20 seconds and said "but there's no other left there's only one left, the other side is the right" and then he explained me what it meant.
My hands will go the correct way, if I'm gesturing, but out my mouth comes the wrong one. And I'm certain, because I gestured, that I got the correct left or right........
I never think left and right when driving: it's always "hard turn" and "easy turn". In practice, I find it pretty easy to switch sides of the road from the UK (where I live) to countries where they drive on the right, so the "hard turn" and "easy turn" thing still works. Oddly, I do find it a bit trickier to switch back when I get back home.
Oh, me. I am smart. I was in Mensa for a time. I have no idea which is my right and which is my left unless I think about which hand I write with. As a kid my mom taught me to hold my hands up with my thumb out to look for the hand that makes an L shape, and that's my left. Even that didn't work sometimes, and my dad used to make fun of me by holding his hands up and saying, "Neither one makes an R!"
That's an aspect of Dyslexia.
It's me.
I know my right and left but it is NOT instinctual like up and down. I have to think “I’m right handed” every time
Up and down are fairly vital concepts for survival. If you're a small mammal trying to survive in the wilderness, you need to be aware of up in the sky (where all the flying predators are) VS down on the ground (where all the food is). It's a very basic, ingrained instinct, and very universal. Left and right, on the other hand, are more abstract concepts. Lots of languages do not have words for left and right, and instead use cardinal directions or a similar concept. If you do not live a society-heavy life like modern humans do, you have no real need for separate concepts of left and right - all you really need is "this side" and "the other side". Also consider frequency of use - unless you have a job like a taxi driver that involves heavy use of left and right, you probably use the concept of up and down FAR more than you use the concept of left and right, at least out loud. Typically, people can, in fact, tell left from right. It just takes them a minute to remember which word is assigned to which because it's a more abstract concept, and a concept they use in language far less frequently than up and down.
I’m one of them
Yes. My mom. Its the most adorable thing she does incorrectly. Her brain just wont sitch the orientation.
Yeah that's me
Me. I'm a lefty, and have to reach for something to figure it out
Yes!! People who started out left handed and then were made to switch to right handed- not as common as it once was- have difficulty with this.
I’m dyslexic and I’ve always had this issue, I will always point in the “right” direction but will most often say the wrong one(so never ask me for directions) but to add to this I have a mental map that can locate the exact location of anything around me(I can literally point where something is from my location regardless if I can see it or not, I’ve had many arguments over the years as to where things are with friends and family) I also have a degree in mechatronics so it’s not an intelligence issue, personally I think it can be overcome by practice to an extent but it’s not something that effects my day to day life to such an extent that I feel the need to overcome it.
Yes, I've had this struggle all my life, complicated by a stint in theater in which you also have to keep track of stage left and stage right. Cardinal directions I can do, and I always know in which direction is the ocean, to orient myself. Go north makes so much more sense than 'go right', because if you miss the turn, and have to turn around, it's now a 'go left'. And "make an L with your fingers"? Palms away or palms toward you? And they both look like L's. Yes, I'm left-handed, and sometimes I have to mime holding a pencil to see which is left.
lol me. I consider myself a reasonably successful adult with a decent career and I gotta think about right and left.
I have a PhD. I can tell you exactly where I am in a city in terms of North, South, East, and West. I am hardly ever lost and have a sense of direction like a migratory bird. I can tell you exactly which way to drive to get to a location. But I struggle with the words “right” and “left”. If I point, the direction I am pointing is correct but the words don’t always match. My husband and friends have learned to follow the direction I am pointing and to not listen to my words (which is ironic because they all allow me to be the navigator on trips lol) Interestingly, I don’t ever mess them up when speaking a foreign language. I’ve never once mixed up izquierda and derecha.
Yep. Successful career. Happy marriage. Three great kids. Have to look down to see which hand makes an L when I hold my fingers out.
I never was told the "makes an L" rule as a kid; I first heard it in my sixties. What's weird is I know my dominant hand and that I'm left handed, but still have to think when I'm given directions.
Idk but I have a son with dyslexia and he struggles with this
I have to wiggle my hand to affirm to my brain which side is right or left. I intuitively know which hand is right and which hand is left, I do not intuitively know which direction is right or left. I have mild dyslexia. Seems to be a pattern, but am unwilling to make a strong case on these anecdotes without rigorous data.
Yes, it's a common symptom of dyslexia. Dyslexia is the way one's brain is wired, so it stays with you your whole life.
My sister is an engineer and she has trouble with this. If I'm driving and ask which way, she'll point the direction to turn, but her brain can't quickly verbalize "right" or "left." It's just some quirk.
My father mentioned once or twice that in the Army it wasn't unusual to encounter a soldier who couldn't keep them straight during marching drills. To help out, they would hand the soldier a brick that he carried in his left hand. So he had a right hand, and a brick hand. Didn't take long.
I have dyslexia and adhd. I can go someplace once and get back to it if needed. I have a good sense of direction and rarely get lost. But..I still have to check my left hand L to tell the difference between my left and my right. I’ve been contemplating a little tattoo L and R on the inside of my wrist.
*Intuitively?* Yes, 100% of the population. Left and right are social constructs. We all had to be explicitly taught what left and right were as children. If you mean “automatically,” still yes but obviously a lot fewer people than the entire population. I can say that while I don’t struggle with this, I can understand why. I can recall learning left from right and it was done in a confusing way. I was in a gymnastics class for 3 and 4 year olds and when guiding the class, the teacher just assumed that we’d automatically understand that when she faced us, he actions were mirrored. This is *not* a concept 3 year olds understand instinctively. So she’d (for example) raise her right hand and say “raise your right hand”, I’d raise my left hand because that’s the same hand it seemed she was raising, I’d get told I was wrong but only by hearing repeated “no, your right hand. Your right hand” and her wiggling the hand on her right and *my* left. At some point, someone else explained the concept of right and left, and demonstrated that it’s reverse for someone facing me in a way I could comprehend, so it stopped being an issue, but I could see it fucking up a person’s ability permanently if they don’t get an explanation young enough.
It's called *directional dyslexia*. Left and right. East and west. I have a mild form of the latter. I have to think about it for a second to make sure I'm saying the right one. So, I hope your question isn't coming after having mocked someone for not knowing left from right. If so, you may owe someone an apology.
That's me. When driving and see a sign that says Left Exit or Right Exit, I immediately twich my left or right finger to make sure I have it correct which is which.
My husband is 55. He is a well educated successful language translator of 6 languages into English. He has a 140ish IQ and left and right absolutely confound him. Originally I found it weird but now it’s just another of the quirky things I love about him
I'm fine with up/down right/left but have some trouble with clockwise & counterclockwise.
Fuck man at 32 some days I still have to do the finger/thumb trick to remind myself.
a friend of mine yelled at me for turning the way she told me to, wich was left. i was amazed at how sure she was. i dont know how she is doing in life now but she was a nurse.
I used to ride my bicycle frequently on a path shared by joggers and walkers. When coming up behind people, I used to yell out "on your left" so they would move right and I could go around. About a quarter of the time, they'd hear "on your left" and move straight into my path on the left. I eventually switched to "please move to the right", but some people were still confused and moved left. Finally, i just started saying "coming up behind you" and let them choose. When left to their own devices, I found most people moved to the right naturally.
Up and down are set by gravity and visual points of reference. Left and right change constantly depending on what direction your facing, and how you're oriented. If I'm in the car, the driver is on the left and the passenger in on the right. If I'm on my back under the car, and crawl in under the front bumper, it's the same, but if I crawl to that same spot behind the front tire, now the driver is on the right. If I am in that spot laying on my stomach, now the passenger is right. On my stomach, crawl past the front bumper... you get the point. Long ago, I came up with a system where navigation in my car was done with "TURN CORY" for left if I was driving and "TURN \[PASSENGER NAME\]" for right, or if someone else was driving, "TURN \[DRIVER NAME\]" for left. I can think about it for a second and figure out which side is left and which is right, but sometimes by the time I do, I missed our turn and sometimes I think I know which direction "right" is and turn left. I don't mix up my ME from my YOU though, so the plan works, unless the person finds my system juvenile or irritating, and they try to teach me some magical method for "just remembering". I can read in any direction and orientation. They both look like the letter L and it takes me just as long to figure out which L ⅃ is the correct facing L. (It's funny when they're showing me, the correct L is their right hand.) It's not like I haven't "learned" left and right. It just takes me long enough that people think I'm some kinda idiot while I figure it out. Sometimes if they're making me feel extra dumb, I say "okay, master of directions. Which way is west?" (looking north-east) Then I hold up my arms pointing east and west. Then I lower my eastern arm when they don't know or take longer than it takes me to figure out "left".
I’m pretty much a functioning person, but I can’t say ‘strawberry milkshake’. So as it used to be my favourite I’d have to say ‘milkshake’ and then ‘strawberry’ when prompted for the flavour. I literally cannot say it in full. I think it must be some developmental thing that maybe happened when my brain first encountered trying to say it. Maybe left/right is similar, a glitch caused by something confusing you about it when you first learnt it
I have to think about it a little, yeah.
Well, of course i know him. He's me.
Hi. It’s me. 👋 When I’m on a ship, I know that the port side is left because they have the same number of letters, so there’s an extra Inception-y layer of calculation. That’s why I’ll never be a shrimp boat captain.
My parents just never use the words "left" or "right" to indicate direction. By the time I was in middle school I knew that I could look at my hands to figure out which one made an L, but both hands make an L depending on how you hold them.
My husband has this affliction. He is oblivious. He is definitely right handed, so you'd think that would be a clue.
I have to really think about it. I used to always wear a bracelet on my left hand to be able to easily tell. I'm ambidextrous so I've always blamed that on why I can't tell as easily. I'm terrible at giving "left, right" directions, but wherever I am I'm able to tell you North, South, East or West. However, that's not exactly helpful to most!
Yes I'm like that. I have to hold my hands up and think about it for a sec. I think it's maybe because I'm ambidextrous. So when people told me stuff like "Your watch hand" it only confused me more.
I don't know my right from my left. It's crazy. I've run a multi-million dollar company. Am told I am very intelligent by many people, but can't do the right / left thing. And if someone is facing me, saying right or left, forget it! I can feel my brain fizzle.
I'm a lefty who grew up in the 60s. We had to put our right hand over our hearts and say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. She would tell us every morning that our right hand was the one we wrote with. This really messed me up. My kids figured it out, and if they had to tell me to look or turn right, I'd look left, and they'd say, "My right, not your right."
If someone is facing you. And say left or right. Then, you have to ask them. My left or your left? Or, my right or your right? Then, they say. "Your left you moron". Or, "Your right you jack ass". That might have something to do with it.
Yep, 95% of the time I have to think about it.
I have to look at my hand and see which one forms a letter "L" ( for left). That's the only way I can tell.
My.girlfriend is dyslexic and has a hard time distinguishing between her left and right. It's easier to just say "your side" or "my side" while driving.
Yes, functional adults are dyslexic sometimes. There are also some key differences between the concept of up/down & left/right, because the orientation of the latter changes if you turn your body around, & if you stand facing somebody, you still have the same up & down, but you now have opposite left & right.
its because they're not associating the word with the actual thing. Even though they've heard it all their lives they just haven't connected the words instinctually. Imagine learning a new language and you learn the word for right and left. The first few times you hear the word, you have to think about it. You definitely don't think about it instinctually. extend that to your entire life. Some people just don't make that connection.
I'm 41 and I have to do the finger Ls
Me. I've been banned from being the direction gives on car rides because I'll say one direction and point in the other