It is very common to see people making mistakes when they need to distinguish left from right. The error is so common that one in six individuals actually cannot point out directions. And even people who believe they don't have problems with this, when they aren't concentrated, often end up getting this guidance wrong too.
Distinguishing right from left can be quite a challenge.
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An error that may seem childish is recurrent in many people's lives, however something like that can be fatal, especially when you are a doctor. Have you heard of cases where the professional confused which was the right side and drilled the opposite of what was needed? There are even those who have had surgery on the wrong eye. Yes, even a biopsy done on a healthy organ has been reported. All this because this sense is completely confused.
And although there are many people who find it easy to differentiate left from right as well as point out where it is “above” and “below”, one in six people have serious difficulties making this distinction in everyday life. day.
A professor of neuropsychology at the University of Leiden, Lineke van der Ham, explains why it is understandable that individuals, even without presenting difficulty in differentiating what is “up” from what is “below”, have problems with the side directions.
“It's because of the symmetry and because when you turn around, it's backwards. It makes it all very confusing.”
Why is it so difficult to distinguish?
For the simple fact that the distinction between right and left is much more complex, as it requires memory, language, visual and spatial processing and mental rotation. You researchers still have a lot to analyze to understand why the task becomes so much easier for some people than for others.
Confusion has already been seen among many. Even former US President Donald Trump has already confused which side was nominated at a summit in the Philippines in 2017.
How to distinguish one side from the other?
There are people who point to the sides as intuitively as they are able to register what is “behind” and “ahead”, however, there will always be those who need to think long and hard before saying which side is left or right. right.
The clinical professor at Queen’s University Belfast explains how it is possible to circumvent this doubt: “First of all, you must orient the right from the left itself really", but if the answer doesn't come automatically, you can think about which hand you write with or which arm you have a tattoo on, then you'll be able to orient yourself from there. from that.