Why lateral inversion takes place in plane mirror
Answers
Lateral inversion, meaning a “sideways” reversal, is seen in a flat (plane) mirror. The mirror shows a three-dimensional object reversed in the direction at 90 degrees (normal) to the mirror surface. In slightly simplified terms, the “front-back” is reversed. However, people usually perceive that change as a left-right reversal (hence the term lateral inversion) rather than a front-back reversal. That’s probably because the left and right of an object are defined after top-bottom and front-back have been fixed in our minds. People sometimes disagree a bit over the details, but it is a psychological effect. The explanation for the lateral inversion of writing and text (if considered as two-dimensional) usually needs to be slightly different. With writing or text there may not be any reversal in the direction normal to the mirror, but the orientation of what we perceive to be the front of the letters is changed.
