Mirror handwriting or mirror writing, as psychologists call the phenomenon when a person writes not from left to right, but vice versa. Moreover, all the letters look as if they were written in a mirror image. This feature has another name - "Leonardo's handwriting".
Mirror writing is called "Leonardo's handwriting" after Leonardo da Vinci. This man was an artist, scientist, sculptor, architect, inventor, etc. Many of his entries, including the famous diary, were written in this way, from right to left, and all letters are depicted in reverse.
Over the centuries, many have tried to answer the question, why did da Vinci write his notes in mirror handwriting? At the moment, there are two main theories. The first is that the genius needed to hide his notes from reading. Thus, da Vinci used this writing method to encrypt his records.
The adherents of the second theory explain this feature of da Vinci's recordings by its convenience for the author himself. According to some assumptions, the scientist used his left hand to write. And as the latest research by scientists has proved, if a person is left-handed, then it is much more convenient and faster for him to write letters in a mirror image.
The phenomenon of mirror writing is not uncommon, and in most children, not only left-handed, between the ages of three and seven, one can observe the spontaneous appearance of "Leonardo's handwriting." According to scientists, this is a necessary stage in mastering the skill of writing. But still, this feature can be observed more often in people who use their left hand to write.
Some doctors associate this phenomenon with mental and physical diseases of the brain. Very often, mirror writing is found in patients with schizophrenia, with focal brain damage, epilepsy and neuropsychiatric disorders. Moreover, most often "Leonardo's handwriting" is found in people with diseases that affect the left hemisphere of the brain.
At the moment, there is no consensus on what exactly the mirror handwriting is connected with. Is it a sign of mental or physical abnormalities in the work of the brain, or is it manifested in geniuses? Also, there are no exact statistics as to how much left-handedness is a prerequisite for the occurrence of mirror writing. The phenomenon of mirror writing is still being explored by many.
