Directional Bias

[jducoeur]

I noted this morning how curious the human reaction to a mirror is. Some 35 years after learning to brush my hair in the mirror, the left-right error still sometimes throws me off when trying to manipulate things away from my body, and I have to consciously compensate for it. Which is odd, given that there is no such up-down confusion -- that's entirely intuitive. The mirror is doing the same thing in both respects, but we visually parse it *very* differently: up-down is easy and natural; left-right isn't. (I think -- I assume I'm not terribly unusual in this.)

There must be some neurological basis for this lateral bias in human vision -- having to do with the evolution of stereoscopic vision, maybe? -- but I don't know what's going on there...