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Why mirrors seem to reverse left and right but not up and down

Ellsworth Toohey
Jan 31, 2026
∙ Paid

Mirror (Jim Bethke/shutterstock.com)

Why, in a mirror, is the writing on your t-shirt backwards but your head and feet where they belong? The puzzle of why mirrors appear to reverse left and right — but not up and down — has confused people since at least Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. A 2000 paper in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review provides a …

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