# Is the ability to easily read text upside down and backwards fairly universal or not? **URL:** \ **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:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/21 "2004-11-07T05:25:23Z")
I have always been able to do it. If I read aloud though I realise I am a bit slower reading upside down. Fortunately impressed observers don’t notice. One of my favourite weird abilities stories was about a woman who could take dictation in either French or English and transcribe both the original and the translation simultaneously, French right handed and English left handed. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/22 "2004-11-07T06:18:11Z")
> [@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? I vote for the fanciful tale: > **[Leonardo da Vinci](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci)** > > Leonardo da Vinci\[b\] (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he also became known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and paleontology. Leonardo's genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist i... > [@](#): > > Perhaps even more impressive than his artistic work are his studies in science and engineering, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and science. He was left-handed and used mirror writing throughout his life. Explainable by fact that it is easier to pull a quill pen than to push it; by using mirror-writing, the left-handed writer is able to pull the pen from right to left. Not to mention less messy: a left handed writer in those days had a constant struggle with ink smears, if it had to write from left to right with ink that took an eternity to dry. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/23 "2004-11-07T18:59:04Z")
Here’s another vote for autism, especially its mild cousins, having an effect on latent ability to do this sort of thing. I’ve got compulsion to draw and sketch shapes, and spatial sense that gets me funny but appreciative looks when helping friends pack a moving van. I keep to myself, have certain tics (mild trichotillomania, strong reaction to loud sounds or persistent white noise, other OCD tics regarding pens and pencils) that mirror mild autism. All that said, I can’t remember not being able to read upside-down or backwards. I suspect it has to do with the ability to seize a pattern from a scene and either (a) perform computation on it without rotating it internally, or (b) rotate it effortlessly and compute on the new image. I also have a possibly related talent: being able to recognize animals in tall grass along a road while driving past at 70+ mph – a brown blur resolves to “woodchuck” or “fox” or “dead rabbit missing a leg” before nearly any of my passengers even sees it. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2004, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/24 "2004-11-07T19:08:08Z")
I have little trouble reading printed text upside-down. Handwriting is another story entirely. I really have to struggle to read handwritten (cursive) text upside-down, although with most people’s handwriting these days, it’s no picnic to read it rightside-up. I think the reason it took so long to figure out Leonardo’s “code” is that it was backward cursive. Had it been printed, anyone would have quickly figured it out. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2004, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/25 "2004-11-07T20:48:07Z")
It’s important to note here that the ability to read easily _at all_, even for straight upright text, is far from universal. A great many people cannot parse text directly, but must rather sound out each word (perhaps silently, but still with lip movements or regulated breathing). Asimov once wrote of being bored on a subway, and reading upside-down the comic book another commuter was reading right-side-up. He grew impatient when the other rider took too long to turn the pages, and realized that she was shaping each word in her mouth. Of course, the SDMB is very strongly selected for those who do read effortlessly, so it might be difficult to realize in a discussion here that this is not universal. ---
**Author:** ![umop\_ap\_sdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dbc845/32.png) [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/26 "2004-11-08T02:42:43Z")
I don’t have a factual answer for the OP, but I do have an observation that might shed some light on things. IME, when reading right-side-up text, three things seem to happen: 1.) the words are “heard” silently in my head; 2.) each word has a “feel” or “vibe” to it that helps tell it apart from similar words, and 3.) its meaning is instantly comprehended and integrated into the sentence being “heard” nonaurally. FWIW, #1 and #2 for me result in instant word-by-word recognition rather than sounding out of letters. When reading upside down text, #2 doesn’t seem to be there at all. 1 and 3 must be relied upon exclusively to grasp the sentence being conveyed, which slows things down a bit. OTOH, wehn raeding scrmabled txet, the eyes glide effortlessly over the words but something about them “sticks out”. Now this is only one person’s observation, but could it be that both brain hemispheres participate in the process, one being easily disrupted by poor spelling (left) and the other by rotation (right)? ---
**Author:** ![Zarina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Zarina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zarina)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/27 "2004-11-08T12:08:24Z")
Hmm… my ability is mixed, some word’s are easy such as book, I did stumble on Ideal thinking it was ‘learn’ and I thought ‘strength’ was ‘strategy’ I do have to concentrate more aswell. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388/28 "2004-11-08T12:43:39Z")
The thesis of [The Gift Of Dyslexia](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/039952293X/qid=1099917700/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-9868998-7324830) is that dyslexics have an enhanced spatial ability that includes processing 2D information (like letters on a page) in 3D - rotation about axes, mirroring etc. It is this additional processing that creates some of the symptoms of Dyslexia (reversed letters, d/b confusion), because from a spatial point of view, they are the same, just viewed from a different frame of reference. Maybe dyslexics have a better ability to read upside-down because their brains can do the spatial mapping. Simon [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-ability-to-easily-read-text-upside-down-and-backwards-fairly-universal-or-not/273388.md?page=1)