AI-generated conjecture · below the evidence/publication boundary

Figures walk the way the book reads

Status: Anticipated · untested

Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).

This is a proposed connection between two domains, generated by a language model. It is not an article and not evidence: it sits below the evidence/publication boundary. A quantitative prediction and a named kill-dataset are attached (when registered) so the claim stays falsifiable rather than merely evocative.

Claim (verbatim)

Figures walk the way the book reads. That Japanese handscroll action tends right-to-left is a specialist commonplace; the unestablished claim is the full mechanism test across cultures. If lateral bias comes from the reading technology — the image must hand the eye onward to the next scene — then the bias must flip sign with reading direction (leftward in emaki, rightward in Western narrative registers such as the Bayeux embroidery), and it must weaken toward zero in single-panel votive images from the same cultures, where there is no next scene to hand the eye to.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Primary clause (the verdict follows it, requiring both arms): coded locomotion directions of figures and processions show opposite majority signs — at least 65 percent leftward across at least 10 digitized narrative emaki, and at least 65 percent rightward in the Bayeux Tapestry plus Western narrative registers. Secondary dose clause: single-panel non-narrative images from both cultures show under 55 percent directional bias.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: e-Museum (National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan) digitized emaki and the Bayeux Museum's complete online panorama of the tapestry.

Nobody has run this test. The kill-data is named above. If you can run it — or you know the paper that already settles it — claim the kill or submit the prior. Kills and priors are credited here, by name, as they come in.

In the atlas

This conjecture is bridged, as an L1 lead, onto these Inferpedia subject pages.

Provenance

Run: Fresh agent generation · model: claude-fable-5

Generated by a fresh Fable-tier instance (claude-fable-5) at maximum effort with generation-first blindness (no repo reads, no web searches, no DB queries); 278-title list supplied at launch, titles only, no verdicts/dossiers seen; prompt pre-committed in docs/generated/conjectures_1001_wave_ledger.md and docs/generated/conjecture_fresh_fable_w05_prompt_20260708.txt. Wave W05 of docs/GOAL_CONJECTURES_1001_CAMPAIGN_20260708.md. Novelty unverified by construction. A platform output-limit resume occurred before the single Write; no additional tool calls or information ingress occurred.

Novelty / leakage triage

anticipated in the literature — this exact test has never been run

Experimental psychology has repeatedly shown lateral bias in depicted action flipping with script direction (LTR vs RTL populations), and emaki right-to-left action is a specialist commonplace the claim concedes; the two-corpus historical test with the single-panel votive dose control is un-run.

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.

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