article_snippet: Do you ever have trouble telling right from left?
article_snippet: If so, you're not on your own – a significant proportion of our population has difficulty in telling right from left.
article_snippet: Many people, even adults, say that Many people, even adults confuse right and left.
article_snippet: Dr Gerard Gormley, of Queen's University Belfast, says almost a fifth of college professors and more than a quarter of college students have difficulty quickly identifying right from left .
article_snippet: For example, 19.5 per cent of college professors and 26.2 per cent of college students said that they occasionally, frequently or all of the time had difficulty when they had to quickly identify right from left.
article_snippet: Discriminating between left and right is a complex neuro-psychological process involving several higher brain functions.
article_snippet: So correctly distinguishing right from left in a patient also involves mentally rotating images.
article_snippet: It's hardly the end of the world if you take the wrong direction on a journey, but there are many situations where confusing right from left can have devastating consequences.
article_snippet: Don't ever confuse sides .
article_snippet: sometimes we just get things wrong – but left-right ones may be more than a one-off accident.
article_snippet: Evidence would suggest that right-left confusion is more common in women.
article_snippet: The 'distraction effect' Distinguishing right from left also never occurs in isolation.
article_snippet: An individual's ability to self-determine how well An individual could distinguish right from left was also often imprecise.
article_snippet: So many students thought So many students were good at distinguishing right from left when, objectively measured, So many students weren't.
article_snippet: Those who have difficulty in telling right from left often develop Those who have difficulty in telling right from left own techniques – for example placing Those who have difficulty in telling right from left left thumb at right angles to Those who have difficulty in telling right from left index finger to make an 'L' representation for Those who have difficulty in telling right from left 'left' side.
article_snippet: We need to develop strategies to reduce such error-provoking situations and to raise student and teacher awareness of the fact that some individuals are more prone to right-left confusion.
article_snippet: As the people at risk often don't think the people at risk have a problem, testing of the ability to discriminate against right-left discrimination – for example through online psychometric tests – could be offered to students to measure students ability.
article_snippet: Those who are revealed to be challenged in making right-left decisions, would at least have this deficiency flagged up and could apply extra vigilance in certain situations.
highlights_snippet: Says many people have difficulty quickly identifying left and right .
  
highlights_snippet: Is  dangerous if doctors or health professionals confuse left and right .
  