You Like Your Controls Inverted Because Of Science–And Your Brain

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Most gamers, myself included, immediately dive into the settings menu when starting a new game. We adjust everything from sound and subtitles to screen brightness and performance to get the perfect experience. If you’ve ever customized your controller, like switching from standard to inverted controls, you might be interested to learn there’s actually a scientific reason why some people prefer it that way.

A recent study by researchers at Brunel University London, detailed in a paper reported by The Guardian and Eurogamer, investigated why gamers choose between traditional and inverted controls. Dr. Jennifer Corbett and Dr. Jaap Munneke found that the decision isn’t simple, and largely depends on how a person’s brain processes 3D space. Their paper, titled “Why axis inversion? Optimising interactions between users, interfaces, and visual displays in 3D environments,” suggests several factors contribute to this preference.

A recent study by Corbett and Munneke, started during lockdown and released this month, found that many personal preferences might explain why gamers choose to invert their controls. These include things like past gaming experiences, preferred game types, age, the gaming console used, and even how someone moves their mouse.

As a longtime flight sim fan, it’s always interesting to hear why people set up their controls differently. We’ve talked to a lot of players, and it turns out a lot of us choose whether to invert our controls based on what we first learned on – things like the type of console we used, or even the very first flight game we played! What’s even cooler is that a lot of people actually *change* their minds about inverting over time. Because of all this great feedback, we actually added a whole new part to our research to dive deeper into it.

Corbett and Munneke investigated this by having study participants fill out a background questionnaire and then complete a spatial awareness experiment.

Participants completed tasks that challenged their spatial reasoning, including mentally rotating shapes, imagining viewpoints from within images, and judging angles against varying backgrounds. They also had to react to targets appearing on either side of the screen, a task known to be more difficult when the target is on the opposite side of the corresponding button. The researchers then used machine learning to analyze the data from these tasks and identify which combination of abilities best predicted whether a person tended to invert images, according to Corbett.

Corbett found that the common reasons given for why gamers like inverted controls aren’t accurate. The main reason people prefer them actually comes down to how fast players can mentally flip their perspective and react, overcoming a natural tendency called the Simon effect.

According to Corbett, those who responded more quickly were less prone to reversing their answers. People who admitted to occasionally reversing their responses were notably the slowest to complete the tasks. While those who never reversed their answers were generally faster, they didn’t solve the problems correctly any more often than those who did reverse, and in fact, those who reversed answers were a little more accurate.

Playing a flight simulator first doesn’t automatically make someone use inverted controls, and sticking to standard controller settings doesn’t mean you *don’t* invert. Interestingly, research and observations suggest that changing your control preferences could actually improve your gaming skills.

I recently heard something really interesting from Corbett – basically, if you always play a game one way (like always using inverted controls), you should *really* try the opposite! And vice versa. It might feel weird at first, but don’t give up after just a few minutes. Give it a few hours, because you might actually be better at it! It’s like how, back in the day, they used to force left-handed kids to write with their right hand. That messed a lot of people up and made learning harder. Some older folks still don’t even realize they’re naturally lefties and could be way better at writing and drawing if they just switched back to what feels natural. It made me think about how stuck in our ways we can get, even when something else might actually be a better fit.

If you’re adjusting your controller settings, especially whether to invert the Y-axis, it’s worth trying the opposite of what you usually do. It might actually improve your performance and help you survive longer in games like Battlefield 6 or Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.

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2025-09-19 20:10