Sometimes the very first sentence of the work on asymmetry causes a state of stupor, for example: "It has been known for nearly a century that the left half of a face is better recognized than the right half (Wolff, 1933)". Are you sure you got that right? Is the LEFT half of the face image (to your left) or the left half of the FACE, to your right, better recognized? Good when further on in the text there will be a hint, for example, about the dominant role of the brain's right hemisphere in recognizing faces, then it is clear that the left field of vision of the observer has an advantage. Or further will be about the features of the right hemisphere of the brain in the display on the left half of the face (to the right of you) of some bright emotions, which will lead us to the second option. If there are no clues, and the work of Wolff (1933) is not available, then such an article will forever remain a mystery of Nature.

Therefore, the problem can be understanding what is the reference point - the observer or the object. On the one hand, any doctor will clearly understand the phrase "pain in the left hypochondrium", on the other hand, when instead of a person in front of you there is a photograph or a computer-synthesized image, it is easier to take the observer as the point of reference. The interpretation of such formulations can be a test of the degree of egocentrism; at the same time, one can not only misunderstand the author but also understand him in a completely opposite way.

Another paper analyzes the tendency to lie on a certain half of the bed and concludes: "Women tend to occupy the left side of a double bed." Imagine that you approach the bed from the foot edge - which side will be the left? Fortunately, the author further explains that the left side is considered to be the one where the left hand of a person in a lying position is closer to the side edge of the bed. Such unambiguous explanations can be advised to be used by all authors in works in this field.

Similar problems with understanding the results of works on asymmetry are common. "Right-sided curvature of the body" needs an explanation of which way the convex side is directed. What is a "right-sided kiss", or "left-sided hug" (it's good if there are pictures that illustrate this)? To describe simple organisms, it is necessary to go further and after the words "left-sided thickening" indicate whether we see it from the dorsal or ventral view and where the head end of the animal is located. Finally, the direction of twisting depends on which end we look at it from. For example, a modern review describes a "Yakovlevian torque" of the brain, which is illustrated by a drawing of a clockwise rotation of the hemispheres (view from above), which is the exact opposite of the textual description. The confusion may have arisen from the frequent depiction of the brain from below (from the brainstem side), as a classic illustration of a torque, when its direction is indeed clockwise.

Another source of potential errors is the crossing of neural pathways, due to which unilateral brain diseases are reflected on the contralateral side of the body. Therefore, the expression "right-sided Parkinson's disease" (stroke, etc.) needs clarification - right-sided manifestations (tremor, paresis) or pathology to the right hemisphere of the brain.

Of course, even worse than all of the above are situations when population-level asymmetry is registered, but its direction is not described or is described in such terms that it is impossible to understand them. The reader is forced to decide, based on the calculation formulas in the "methods" section, what the positive or negative value of the coefficients in a certain column of the table means and how it correlates with the right and left sides, but this is not always possible.

There are numerous works on medical "errors of laterality" - incorrect determination of the right and left sides in the diagnostic process, which can sometimes lead to tragic consequences up to the removal of a healthy kidney. It can be assumed that similar errors of laterality sometimes occur both when writing and when understanding scientific works about asymmetry.

I conclude with an excerpt from a fantasy novel about a character after a callosotomy whose separated hemispheres controlled the halves of his body - just to illustrate how easy it is to get it wrong on this topic. I suggest you find the inaccuracy in the text yourself.

"...and scandals happened almost every time along the way because I tried to pinch all the pretty women, especially the blondes, below the back. Of course, my left hand was involved in this (and not always in the crowding), but try to explain it in a few words! Several times I received slaps for this and was in a fit of rage and embarrassment because I felt no guilt behind me; and at the same time, I had fun for some reason. But once I got slapped on the left cheek, and then it wasn't funny at all. I thought about it and decided that I could explain what it was all about... "Left" Tychy was slapped for the "right" one, and this was what amused the "right" one. But when the "right" one got for the "right" one, it did not seem funny to him at all, because he got, so to speak, not only for his action, but also in his part of the face.” (St.Lem, Peace on Earth)

Typical difficulties in understanding publications in the field of asymmetry