Study finds people naturally turn left when walking
The first round of research took place in Spain, where the behavior was initially suspected to reflect a cultural trait.
People tend to drift left without even realizing it, according to an international study that found a consistent human habit of turning anti-clockwise while walking.
Researchers say the pattern shows up in enclosed settings including supermarkets, museums and empty rooms, where people appear to favor moving leftward as they navigate space.
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The first round of research took place in Spain, where the behavior was initially suspected to reflect a cultural trait.
But when researchers in Japan repeated the experiment, they arrived at the same conclusion.
“Only age showed a noticeable, but small change, in that younger people followed this pattern more strongly.
“This area of research could impact our understanding of the brain, and fields like design, engineering and architecture,” they added.
The study grew out of video footage capturing how people behaved after social distancing rules were introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“When analysing the experiments, my colleagues realised, by chance, that in 32 out of 33 experimental trials, as people moved and turned, they noticeably preferred to turn counterclockwise,” said Project Associate Professor Claudio Feliciani, who worked in the University of Tokyo’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
“This was completely unexpected as, at least instinctively, when people walk around randomly, you imagine people turn as their needs suit them with little sign of an overall preference.
“But there was a definite, measurable tendency for people to turn counterclockwise over clockwise, all things being equal.
“The team had to understand the reason for this, and all good research practice dictates you test observations against multiple possible causes to narrow down what’s really going on.
“It’s this that led them to contact me in Japan, as initially, it was thought that cultural factors might impact turning preference. So, amongst other things, we tested against that.”
Prof Feliciani and his team watched pedestrians in both open and constrained environments, examining the effect across “cultural background, group size, gender, handedness and age”.
“Of all these things, the only thing that stood out was that kids tend to have a stronger bias for the counterclockwise direction, so probably age plays a role in making the effect weaker or stronger.
“Our results may appear as a minor, insignificant discovery, but in nature, most phenomena related to locomotion show that animals mostly walk without directional preference.
“The strong bias found in people hints to some asymmetry at the biomechanical level.”
The original research was carried out by the Department of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Navarra in Spain.
The follow-up comparative experiments in Japan were conducted by the University of Tokyo team.
