Framing the World in Terms of "Left" and "Right" Is Stranger Than You Think - Facts So Romantic

Sometimes it's the simplest studies that reveal how deeply culture shapes our thinking. Take a 2009 experiment involving only a researcher, a child, and a two-word instruction.1 The researcher announces, "Let's dance!" and demonstrates a series of movements: He holds his hands together at eye level and extends them--first to the left, then to the right, then to the left twice, counting with each movement ("One, two, three, four!"). After a few tries, eventually all the children could do the dance on their own. Now comes the test: The researcher spins the child around, to face the other way, and asks her to perform it again.