Ciara Kelly

speaker

347 appearances 15 recordings 4 series first heard May 2026 last heard 14 Jun

Ciara Kelly’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 15 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 12.

Appearances

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The Claire Byrne Show · Humans prefer to turn left or walk anticlockwise! · 12 Jun 2026 podcast

Are we talking about a sort of a preference here or is it something that is really obvious?

Well, look, it's not a huge effect.

I mean, nobody ends up helplessly spinning left, unable to stop themselves, like sort of a whirling dervish going left all the time.

That we know of, Brendan, that we know of.

Look, I'm a psychiatrist.

They might come to my attention if this was happening.

But across large groups, a preference is seen.

And when you leave people moving in a confined area on their own, they will go left.

And this is probably to do with our general asymmetry, the lateralization.

Our brains are asymmetric with the right side of the brain involved in spatial awareness and

And that might be what is pushing us left because the right side of the brain is interested in what happens on the left.

And that might be turning us or twirling us or twirling you slightly, Ciara, as you went into the kitchen this morning.

Now, the study began with observations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

So was this something that scientists were actually actively looking at or is it a bit of a happy accident, this discovery?

Well, it's a bit of an accident.

Whether it's happy or not is maybe up for question because it was people looking at stuff they wouldn't normally be looking at because during COVID there wasn't an enormous amount to be looking at.

Nevertheless, this was known prior to this and not only in humans as well.

it is known that many animals have a tendency to the left or to the right, and this appears to be biological in large part.

So I guess during COVID, it simply became more obvious that this was something worth studying and something worth following up.

And, you know,

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