To expand, I have just cut my own hair for the first time whilst looking in a mirror and I found it so difficult to move my hand in the correct direction or turn it to the correct angle. Why was this so difficult?
In: Biology
It’s simple, it’s a new skill. You’ve always done everything from a specific perspective and you’ve never practiced doing things in reverse. If you had like a week you could totally adjust and do it
Because mirror images are flipped.
When you move your right arm in a mirror, the person you are looking at *appears* to be moving their left arm. As in, if that was another person and *not* a mirror, they *would* be moving their left arm.
So your brain *sees* a left arm being moved but it *feels* the right arm being moved. The brain has evolved for millions of years to make this association because mirrors have only been around for about 200 years. So short of looking at a reflection in water or something, for most of the existence of humans you have only ever seen someones *left* arm moving on the *right* side of your body when they are facing you. Mirrors came along and threw some confusion in where it looks like the left arm is moving but it’s actually the right arm.
(the above applies to both sides of the body in an opposite manner, just easier to get the point across focusing on one arm)
Because a mirror is a reflection, not an exact copy of your actions being shown to you. For example, if you raise your right hand in real life. The reflection in the mirror raises the hand that would be his left hand.
This confuses your brain and makes it more difficult to coordinate actions than it would otherwise be.
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