Funny that I don't have east-west confusion to the same extent derrymacash writes.

No, it's not. Think of looking in the mirror. The mirror changes left to right and vice versa but doesn't change up and down. Why not? What's 'up' doesn't depend on your position (on earth, in space that's a different question) what's left does. So up and down (and east and west for that matter) don't change with my personal frame of reference, but left and right do (when I move about).

This changing frame of reference is what makes it difficult with left/right for a not too small subgroup of the population (the majority of them are female).

You'll see this individual difference also in map using. Those who have, on the average, more difficulties with left/right turn the map (when e.g. going south) the others hate turned maps. Map turners too are more often found among females.

Wolfgang