Here's a new twist to the phrase "minding your p's and q's." Our perception of the world may be altered by our alphabet. Specifically, people unfamiliar with reverse characters seem to have difficulty distinguishing mirror images.
Eric Pederson, Ph.D., assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Oregon, examined monoliterate, biliterate and nonliterate Tamil and English speakers in southern India. Pederson showed participants a complex line drawing and three other images: a shape contained in the original drawing, the same shape reversed and an unrelated shape. He asked if the reversed or "mirror" shape was identical to the shape contained in the original drawing. Eighty-six percent of biliterates (those familiar with Tamil and Latin alphabets) successfully identified the shapes. Nonliterates and subjects who only read Tamil were successful 59 percent and 35 percent of the time.
