While walking in a park, waiting for my wife, on a paved path that is shared by bike, and pedestrians, I heard a bike approaching from the rear. I was walking on the right side of the pavement. As I turned my head to look, the person on the bike let out a feeble "on your left". Now here is the strange part, I moved over to my left! My brain screamed at me "WTF ARE YOU DOING!?!", and I jumped over to the right side of the path.
Now this subject comes up now and then, and I also hate when I happens to ME. So I got to thinking about why I moved to the left and not the right. After all I know what "on your left" means, I means I'm passing you on your left side(stay the F out of my way). The only thing that I could come up with is that we hear the word left, and sine that is more real, for lack of a better term, we react to the word left, by moving to the left. As I 'turn, left'. Can any of you armchair psychologists can lend any credence to this thought.
Perhaps some experimentation is in order, the next time I'm riding on the MUP, and I pass a walker, I'll switch the "left" and "right" in the "on your ----" and see what happens. Of course this may cause some confusion, but if I'm careful, and not pass until the person moves, maybe I'll learn something. Anybody else want to try?