An international study led by the University de Navarra, with the participation of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), has discovered that people exhibit a slight but consistent tendency to move toward the left when walking. The research, carried out in collaboration with researchers from Waseda University and the University of Tokyo (Japan), as well as Shanghai University (China), and published in Nature Communications, shows that this individual inclination influences how crowds spontaneously organize themselves and could help improve models used to manage pedestrian flows in crowded spaces.
The results identify an intrinsic locomotor bias—that is, a predisposition in the direction of movement—which helps explain certain collective patterns observed in groups of pedestrians. The study challenges the idea that these behaviors depend exclusively on social norms or human interaction, offering a new perspective for understanding how certain collective phenomena arise. In the long term, this knowledge could contribute to designing safer, more comfortable, and more efficient public spaces.
Until now, scientists attributed the spontaneous organization of crowds primarily to: Interactions between people; collision avoidance maneuvers; social norms regarding movement (such as walking on the right or left depending on the country); physical characteristics of the environment (such as walls or spatial boundaries). However, this study shows that part of these behaviors could originate from individual predispositions present before any social interaction.
"For decades, we thought that these collective patterns arose solely from the interaction between pedestrians. In our work, we have verified that a significant part of them does not emerge only when people gather, but is instead inherent to the individual," notes Iñaki Echeverría, a researcher in Physics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Navarra and first author of the paper.
The researchers observed that when a group of people is asked to walk, whether in an enclosed or completely open space, there is a slight tendency to move in a counterclockwise direction. Although this preference is small at an individual level, its effect is amplified when hundreds or thousands of people participate, generating collective patterns observable on a large scale.
"Not all group members exhibit this preference, but a large majority do tend to move counterclockwise. This inclination ends up dictating the direction the group follows and gives rise to visible collective patterns," Echeverría explains.
The counterclockwise tendency appears beyond cultural norms and the environment
To test traditional explanations, the team conducted an extensive experimental campaign over several years in Spain and Japan. Comparing both countries allowed them to analyze whether the phenomenon depended on how pedestrians try to avoid colliding while walking, given that people in both countries typically move and dodge each other on opposite sides. The trials included groups of adults walking in controlled spaces, schoolchildren moving freely in an open yard, preschool children, and participants completing routes individually.
Another explanation that the team has ruled out is that there is some social norm making us prefer moving in a counterclockwise direction. UC3M professor Anxo Sánchez designed a questionnaire based on his experience researching social norms in contexts like climate change to study this possibility.
"The results were clear: there was no notable social norm, but furthermore, if data analysis suggests anything, it is that the norm would be to walk in a clockwise direction—in complete contradiction with the experiment—meaning it cannot explain the observations," notes Anxo Sánchez, from the Mathematics Department at UC3M.
One of the most significant results was verifying that this tendency persisted even when the factors traditionally considered responsible disappeared. It appeared in young children who had not yet internalized many social norms related to pedestrian circulation, in open spaces without walls or obstacles, and in countries with different traffic habits.
"We wanted to find out if the phenomenon depended on cultural norms, interaction with the environment, or pedestrian avoidance strategies. The results indicate that none of these factors, on its own, fully explains what we observed," points out Iker Zuriguel, Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Navarra and one of the main authors of the study.
Testing individuals walking alone further confirmed that the directional preference was present at an individual level, ruling out that it was a property that only emerges when people form part of a group. The researchers also analyzed factors associated with laterality, such as being right- or left-handed, dominant foot, or ocular dominance, without finding evidence that these factors explain the observed behavior.
Designing spaces adapted to how people move
In addition to providing new knowledge about human behavior, the work could have applications in fields such as urban mobility and the management of large crowds. The researchers managed to mathematically reproduce the patterns observed in large groups using only information obtained from individuals walking alone, which reinforces the idea that some collective dynamics can be understood from shared individual characteristics.
This knowledge can be useful in environments with a high concentration of people, such as airports, train stations, shopping centers, or sports venues, where models are increasingly used to optimize routes and reduce congestion.
"Better understanding the factors that influence the way we move allows for the development of more precise models on how people circulate in shared spaces. This information could be useful for designing more efficient infrastructure and creating environments that better adapt to how we move in our daily lives," Zuriguel adds.
The authors remind us that social interactions and the environment remain key elements for understanding crowd behavior.
"The results suggest that individual predispositions also play a relevant role in the emergence of collective movements. Furthermore, the study opens up new questions about the biological origin of these tendencies, as similar phenomena are observed in other animal species, from schools of fish to insect colonies," Echeverría concludes.
Journal
Nature Communications
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Individual locomotor bias drives counterclockwise motion in pedestrian crowds
Article Publication Date
10-Jun-2026
