Predictors of human rotation

Abstract

Why some humans prefer to rotate clockwise rather than anticlockwise is not well understood. This study aims to identify the predictors of the preferred rotation direction in humans. The variables hypothesised to influence rotation preference include handedness, footedness, sex, brain hemisphere lateralisation, and the Coriolis effect (which results from geospatial location on the Earth). An online questionnaire allowed us to analyse data from 1526 respondents in 97 countries. Factor analysis showed that the direction of rotation should be studied separately for local and global movements. Handedness, footedness, and the item hypothesised to measure brain hemisphere lateralisation are predictors of rotation direction for both global and local movements. Sex is a predictor of the direction of global rotation movements but not local ones, and both sexes tend to rotate clockwise. Geospatial location does not predict the preferred direction of rotation. Our study confirms previous findings concerning the influence of handedness, footedness, and sex on human rotation; our study also provides new insight into the underlying structure of human rotation movements and excludes the Coriolis effect as a predictor of rotation.

Keywords:

• Human rotation
• Handedness
• Footedness
• Coriolis effect

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor Jan Roth (Department of Neurology and Center of Clinical Neuroscience, Charles University in Prague) for his comments on the paper. This study was supported by the Czech Ministry of Education (research project MSM 0021620864). TC is supported by a Career Scientist Award from the UK Department of Health and the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Notes

¹There are at least three reasons for making this assumption: the item was created as a measure of global rotation preference, the global rotation factor loading is greater, and it greatly simplifies the results of the following analysis.

²We appreciate the editor's comment that this is wrong, and should read, “turn your back on …”.