# Is the ability to easily read text upside down and backwards fairly universal or not?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 6, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388 "2004-11-06T20:42:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/1 "2004-11-06T20:42:47Z")
I find (somewhat surprisingly) I can do this quite easily with printed text. Is this ability fairly universal or not? Does eyeryone do this?
Additionally why can people do this? The text is upside down and going in the wrong direction, yet is easily recognizable. Is it a a function of the way humans process images, or is it more a function of the way you were taught to read?
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### Author:  [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/2 "2004-11-06T20:48:29Z")
Never thought about it, but I have no problem doing it.
Made it a lot easier sharing books in school during study.
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/3 "2004-11-06T20:50:23Z")
I would guess that any normal person who can not easily do this could do so with a bit of practice. The same applies to reading mirror text. If you can’t do it, it’s probably just an indication that you haven’t had any reason to try it very often.
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### Author:  [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/4 "2004-11-06T20:52:33Z")
As usual, I hit submit too quick… :smack:
I just wanted to post a [link](http://www.mindpub.com/art168.htm) to an article that mentioned it.
> [@](#):
>
> The other day, I was reading a book on a rather tedious subject. I found myself wading through to the finish. The author of the book had failed to make it interesting. To break the monotony and truly engage my mind, I thought of doing something unusual. I turned the book upside down. I expected that in order to read the words upside down, I would have to concentrate hard and decode every word to make sense of it. To my surprise, even when I had turned the book upside down, it was almost as readable as it was straight up. That’s when I realized that it doesn’t affect your ability to read or comprehend whether you place a book upside down or straight up. Your eye and your brain make automatic adjustments to this change. Try reading a book upside down just to marvel at how flexible and adaptable your brain is. Unfortunately, a person with reading disability may have a hard time with it.
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### Author:  [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/5 "2004-11-06T20:53:51Z")
I can **write** upside down, backwards, mirror writing blindfolded. I did not acquire the skill through practice, it’s just something I once discovered I could do. People seem to think it’s remarkable, though.
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/6 "2004-11-06T21:03:15Z")
> [@Martha](#):
>
> I can **write** upside down, backwards, mirror writing blindfolded. I did not acquire the skill through practice, it’s just something I once discovered I could do. People seem to think it’s remarkable, though.
That’s kind of the point of my question. Per **yabob’s** point I never “trained” to read upside down and backwards, I just can. My brain just sort of “interprets” the reversed images. According to the quote by **harmless** , this appears to be a fairly common ability.
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/7 "2004-11-06T21:04:39Z")
> [@Martha](#):
>
> I can **write** upside down, backwards, mirror writing blindfolded. I did not acquire the skill through practice, it’s just something I once discovered I could do. People seem to think it’s remarkable, though.
That _is_ a bit frightening! :eek:
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### Author:  [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/8 "2004-11-06T21:07:30Z")
Hope you don’t mind another one, but I found this interesting:
> [@](#):
>
> It is well known that autistic children and youths sometimes have unusual skills. In our investigation of 20 autistic children and 20 normal children, the autistic children were better than the control group at recognizing pictures and reading letters and words presented to them upside down.
From the [National Library of Medicine](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3442127&dopt=Abstract).
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### Author:  [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/9 "2004-11-06T21:11:00Z")
> [@astro](#):
>
> That _is_ a bit frightening! :eek:
😃 Lucky for me the witch burning days are over.
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### Author:  [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/10 "2004-11-06T21:23:27Z")
Maybe it’s retlaed to tihs pheonemnon.
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### Author:  [@InvidiousCourgette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InvidiousCourgette)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/11 "2004-11-06T21:25:02Z")
> [@Martha](#):
>
> I can **write** upside down, backwards, mirror writing blindfolded. I did not acquire the skill through practice, it’s just something I once discovered I could do. People seem to think it’s remarkable, though.
I was told that Galileo \*chose \* to write in mirror writing. By someone who could do the same happily. She thought the ability has something to do with being artistic and having a dominant left part of the brain or something. It seemed a reasonable theory but I do not know if it holds any water.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/12 "2004-11-06T21:47:19Z")
Personnally, I don’t have this ability. I just tried, and I had to pay close attention to each word to be able to read it. So, it would be very tedious.
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### Author:  [@Gaius.Cornelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaius.Cornelius)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/13 "2004-11-06T22:44:58Z")
> [@InvidiousCourgette](#):
>
> I was told that Galileo \*chose \* to write in mirror writing…
I think you are probably thinking of Leonardo Da Vinci rather than Galileo.
See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror\_writing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_writing).
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/14 "2004-11-06T22:57:26Z")
> [@Gaius.Cornelius](#):
>
> I think you are probably thinking of Leonardo Da Vinci rather than Galileo.
>
> See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror\_writing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_writing).
RE Leonardo’s mirror written [Codex](http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/codex/intro.html) is it true that this was considered some nigh unbreakable “code”, until a young girl touring the exhibit noticed it was mirror writing and pointed this out, or is this just a fanciful tale?
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### Author:  [@xvxdarkknightxvx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xvxdarkknightxvx)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/15 "2004-11-07T00:11:44Z")
> [@astro](#):
>
> RE Leonardo’s mirror written [Codex](http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/codex/intro.html) is it true that this was considered some nigh unbreakable “code”, until a young girl touring the exhibit noticed it was mirror writing and pointed this out, or is this just a fanciful tale?
Maybe everyone else was illiterate? I don’t see how literate people could have not noticed that.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2004, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/16 "2004-11-07T02:26:39Z")
The amazing thing is that I have no trouble reading the label on an lp, while it’s rotating on a turntable. I have not idea what goes on in my brain when I do this.
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/17 "2004-11-07T02:49:46Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> The amazing thing is that I have no trouble reading the label on an lp, while it’s rotating on a turntable. I have not idea what goes on in my brain when I do this.
It isn’t that difficult with a 33 1/3. It was held to be an indication of how well he could see the pitch that Ted Williams could do it with a 78.
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### Author:  [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2004, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/18 "2004-11-07T02:56:29Z")
I used to be in the printing business, and it was quite helpful to be able to read upside-down, backwards, as well as upside-down _and_ backwards.
Another parlour trick of mine was to stand at a counter across froma another person, with the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle between us. The page would be facing the other person, and we would both fill the grid at once; me reading clues upside-down and writing answers both upside-down and right-to-left.
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### Author:  [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2004, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/19 "2004-11-07T04:45:30Z")
In first & second grade, when I had just learned to read, it was just as easy either way. I’d think it would probably be true for everyone (right?)
Now it’s more awkward upside down, but practice would probably make it easy. For starters, it is working by word recognition rather than letter-by-letter.
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### Author:  [@PetW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PetW)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2004, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/20 "2004-11-07T05:16:35Z")
I really suck at upside down. A lot of the time I can recognize some of the letters and then guess the whole word quickly, but sometimes I’ll just get stuck and have to turn the paper upside down. I got stuck on the word “and” when I tried.
I think with practice I’d be good at it though.
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