Almost Everyone Naturally Turns Left when Walking—and We Still Have No Idea Why
Researchers found the left-turn bias persisted in more than 200 solo walkers and in a 3,000-square-meter playground, pointing to an individual cause.
5 Articles
5 Articles
Almost everyone naturally turns left when walking—and we still have no idea why
This story began, like so many in the history of science, with something we were not looking for. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were studying a practical question: How do people move around in an enclosed space when you ask them to keep apart from one another? Watching the footage time after time, we noticed something odd: Almost every participant walked in loops that turned in the same direction, always counterclockwise. Stranger st…
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South Florida ReporterAlmost everyone naturally turns left when walking – and we still have no idea why
Goinyk Production/ShutterstockThis story began, like so many in the history of science, with something we were not looking for. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were studying a practical question: how do people move around in an enclosed space when you ask them to keep apart from one another? Watching the footage time after time, we noticed something odd: almost every participant walked in loops that turned in the same direction, always…
It all started in 2020 from an observation that was not even the subject of the original investigation. Scientists have been studying how people move...
A new study has noticed something strange that almost everyone does without realizing it: when we walk without a specific destination, we tend to turn left.
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