What is "mirror writing"

Mirror \Mir"ror\, n. [OE. mirour, F. miroir, OF. also mireor, fr. (assumed) LL. miratorium, fr. mirare to look at, L. mirari to wonder. See Marvel, and cf. Miracle, Mirador.]

1. A looking-glass or a speculum; any glass or polished substance that forms images by the reflection of rays of light.

   And in her hand she held a mirror bright, Wherein her face she often view[`e]d fair.
   --Spenser.

2. That which gives a true representation, or in which a true image may be seen; hence, a pattern; an exemplar.

   She is mirour of all courtesy.
   --Chaucer.

   O goddess, heavenly bright, Mirror of grace and majesty divine.
   --Spenser.

3. (Zo["o]l.) See Speculum. Mirror carp (Zo["o]l.), a domesticated variety of the carp, having only three or fur rows of very large scales side. Mirror plate.

   1. A flat glass mirror without a frame.

   2. Flat glass used for making mirrors.

      Mirror writing, a manner or form of backward writing, making manuscript resembling in slant and order of letters the reflection of ordinary writing in a mirror. The substitution of this manner of writing for the common manner is a symptom of some kinds of nervous disease.

Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes used as an extremely primitive form of cipher. The most common modern usage of mirror writing can be found on the front of ambulances, where the word "AMBULANCE" is often written in very large mirrored text, so that drivers see the word the right way around in their rear-view mirror.

Research suggests that the ability to do mirror writing is probably inherited and caused by atypical language organization in the brain. It is not known how many people in the population inherit the ability of mirror writing (an informal Australian newspaper experiment identified 10 true mirror-writers in a readership of 65,000). Half of the children of people with the ability inherit it. A higher proportion of left-handed people are better mirror writers than right-handed people, probably because it's more natural for a left-hander to write backwards. 15% of left-handed people have the language centres in both halves of their brain. The cerebral cortex (thin layer of dense brain cells covering the whole brain) and motor homunculus (relates to voluntary movement) are affected by this causing them to be able to read and write backwards quite naturally.

In an experiment conducted by the Department of Neurosurgery at Hokkaido University School of Medicine in Sapporo, Japan, Scientists proposed that the origin of mirror writing comes from damage caused through accidental brain damage or neurological diseases, such as an essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease, or spino-cerebellar degeneration. This hypothesis was proposed because these conditions affect a "neural mechanism that controls the higher cerebral function of writing via the thalamus." Another study by the same university discovered that damage was not the only cause. The scientists observed that normal children exhibited signs of mirror writing while learning to write, thus concluding that currently there is no exact method for finding the true origin of mirror writing.