The right sort of kiss

One of the earliest examples of behavioral asymmetry in humans is the tendency for the head to turn right in the last few weeks in the womb and the first six months after birth. This is thought to influence perceptual and motor preferences by increasing visual orientation to the right, but how this translates to subsequent adult behavior patterns has been unclear. In a Brief Communication in the February 13 Nature, Onar Güntürkün at the Fakultät für Psychologie, Rhur-Universität Bochum, Germany, shows that this distinct orientation bias persists, and is evident in even the most romantic moments (Nature, 421:711, February 13, 2003).

Güntürkün observed kissing couples at international airports, large railway stations, beaches and parks in the United States, Germany and Turkey. To ensure that extraneous factors were not influencing head-turning, he only counted the first kiss of couples who made lip contact, were in a...