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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

It's really interesting, isn't it? They almost always cycle from left to right - but I have had a few which cycle in the other direction.

The 2D / flat ground feels reasonable for a SVG, which implies a vector illustration.

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It's my impression that it's common in western culture, where text is read left to right, and timelines are visualized as going from left to right, to also animate things going from left to right, since westerners thus have an instinct that "right = forward", so it "feels right" (familiar). I wonder to which degree this is reflected in the training data? And if you'd be more likely to get left-facing pelicans if you prompted it in Hebrew, Arabic or another right-to-left language?

Years ago, I lived in NYC, and my roommate was a director of photography for National Geographic, and various other nature documentaries. I loved photography (still do, but much less time for it as a late 30s adult than a mid 20s adult), and she was kind enough to answer any question I had regarding film/photo.

She told me that "left to right" denoted progression in the story, "right to left" told the viewer the subject was "exiting" the current scene.

She didn't go into the details of WHY, and I probably didn't probe deeper, but it stuck with me, and I notice it all the time in film and television.

As a counterpoint, I did a quick image search on Kagi with "person on a bicycle", and I ended up with 12-left-pointed bicycles, only 3-right-pointed bicycles, 3 facing the camera, and 1 facing away from the camera — looking at photos above the fold (first screen). Even looking below, the pattern seems to continue, though not as prominently (I'd say 3:2 in favour of left-pointing bikes).

Obviously, not scientific.

All the left-pointing bicycles did not look weird to me either.

Forced side scrolling video games also almost always moved from left to right.

Someone studied this (among other thigns): https://dylancastillo.co/posts/pelicanmaxxing.html . Pelicans on bikes always face right in this test, but other animals on other transportation methods sometimes face left.

I was going to ask the exact same question earlier but deleted it after thinking “I’m sure Simon has done some sort of discussion on this.” Since it does seem novel to you, too, it would be really interesting to read more about this phenomenon.

It's the hero's journey. Home is always on the left and you leave going right. Standard in Animation I believe

The real question should be: where are all your Pelicans going ?

> They almost always cycle from left to right

Try searching "bike" in google image :)

Most bike images are from the right side, as that's where the mechanism is (gears, chain etc), so not surprising that LLMs reproduce this

I just did a similar test with Kagi image search using "person on a bicycle", and this actually favours left-pointing bikes (12 left to 3 right to 4 front/back). Maybe so the mechanism does not overwhelm the person?

A search for "bicycle" actually matches your experience with 12 being to the right and 3 being to the left.

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