We usually lean to the right when we kiss.

 

We usually lean to the right when we kiss.

While your reaction to kissing feels like a natural response, for the most part, our kissing style can be traced back to when we were still in our momma’s stomach!

The majority of people will tilt their head to the right when they kiss.

This may seem like a socialized trait, but it actually goes back even further.

The theory goes, is that we lean to the right because when we were in the womb, we naturally tilted our heads to the right.

The next time you lean in for a smooch, keep in mind that two-thirds of people will lean to the right, although there may be the occasional left-tilter, so watch out for head bumps!

Your brain is an organ of two halves – the left side and the right side. And there are many brain functions, such as language skills or which hand you write with, which are organised mostly in one side of the brain or the other.

Simple behavioural tests have now allowed us to see how this organisation is revealed through biases in how we see and interact with the world – and each other – often without us being aware of it.

Examining how people perceive a diagram of variously orientated lines and angles provided clues that people typically have a subconscious bias for seeing things set out in clockwise orientations.

We then realised that this might also be related to a number of physical instincts that people have, such as which way they turn their heads. After looking at recent research in visual psychophysics and visual neuroscience, we saw various perceptual and behavioral phenomena in which humans can have a directional bias.