Various experiments from Spain to Japan have repeatedly shown that people have a clear preference for turning left. The reason remains “an open question” for scientists.
Source: The Guardian
Several experiments show that people have a natural preference to turn to the left. “If you ask someone to walk, whether in a museum, supermarket or empty room, they are surprisingly likely to walk counterclockwise,” said Dr. Iñaki Echeverría Huarte of the University of Navarra.
Accidental discovery
The peculiar feature was discovered quite by chance. During the corona pandemic, scientists conducted various tests to see how many people could fill a room while maintaining a safe distance. When watching the videos, they found that the test audience overwhelmingly walked counterclockwise.
That surprising finding led to a new research project in which individual pedestrians or small groups were asked to walk around enclosed spaces. Once again, the researchers observed the preference for walking counterclockwise.
Universal preference
To rule out cultural explanations, the team worked with Dr. Claudio Feliciani from the University of Tokyo. The same preference also appeared to be present in Japan. The findings held up even when the researchers took into account right-handedness, right-footedness and a dominant right eye. There was also no difference between women and men, although the preference was stronger among children.
“Each of us has a small tendency to one side. When people share a space, those small tendencies add up to a counterclockwise rotation,” says Echeverría Huarte. The details of the research have now been published in the scientific journal ‘Nature Communications’.
The cause remains a mystery
It is still unclear where exactly the preference comes from. Further research is being conducted in the hope of gaining more insight. “We don’t know why it happens, but understanding the reasons might help us better understand how we perceive the world,” said Feliciani of the University of Tokyo. “It could help us make other discoveries that may be even more important than this one.”
The main explanation may lie in biomechanics. “No one is perfectly symmetrical. The way our brain processes information and coordinates muscles may cause a slight preference for one direction,” says Echeverría Huarte. Although he remains somewhat unsure about that hypothesis. “We have now tested several of those ideas, but the preference remains persistent, so the precise mechanism remains an open question.”
Insight into that preference could, for example, help with large-scale evacuations or when designing spaces such as museums, supermarkets and train stations. For example, in 1913 the Olympic athletics track changed its running direction because it felt “unnatural” for most athletes to run clockwise.