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DON鈥橳 feel stupid if you鈥檙e prone to turning door knobs in the wrong
direction. People are terrible at remembering the direction of rotating objects,
psychologists have found鈥攁nd they say the inability may have evolutionary
roots.

David Gilden and Christy Price from the University of Texas at Austin made
the discovery when they asked 48 volunteers to watch computer-animated objects.
The objects either travelled across the screen, rotated clockwise or
counterclockwise, or appeared to loom closer or move farther away.

The volunteers remembered the direction of motion of an object only if it was
moving towards or away from them, or across the screen. 鈥淧eople couldn鈥檛
remember a thing about rotation,鈥� says Gilden. He thinks the difference is a
consequence of our evolution. Knowing whether an animal you were hunting was
approaching or retreating was important, while remembering rotations was
not.

This may explain why we have poor intuitive understanding of the effects of
rotation, says Gilden. 鈥淲hen you look at a top spinning, you are filled with a
sense of wonder.鈥� He also speculates that it may explain why people don鈥檛
intuitively know which way to steer when a car goes into a spin.

Jim Stone, a psychologist at the University of Sheffield, says the results
are intriguing, although he has another explanation. 鈥淎s we grow up, it is very
rare that we come across things that rotate,鈥� he says.

Maybe we don鈥檛 remember rotation because we haven鈥檛 had enough practice,
Stone adds. To help back the idea that there may be an evolutionary cause, he
says, the Texas team should show that we cannot learn about rotations, even in
situations where it is important to us.