Dr. Iñaki Echeverría-Huarte at the University of Navarra in Spain has found across 40 experiments that people without any thought, guidance, or prompting drift to the left. It has nothing to do with being left- or right-handed, nor is it cultural conditioning.
It is worth studying if this leftward drift happens in other areas as well.
Until then, work continues on potential Ig Nobel findings. He and colleagues now say people also rotate counter-clockwise.
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Citation: Echeverría-Huarte, I., Feliciani, C., Shi, Z. et al. Individual locomotor bias drives counterclockwise motion in pedestrian crowds. Nat Commun 17, 4869 (2026).
