Writing with non-dominant hand: left-handers perform better with the right hand than right handers with the left

Authors

  • Kristina Laskowski Biological Anthropology and Comparative Anatomy Unit, School of Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia
  • Maciej Henneberg Biological Anthropology and Comparative Anatomy Unit, School of Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/v10044-012-0012-4

Keywords:

handedness, males, females, re-training, Edinburgh Questionnaire

Abstract

Adult volunteers (7 females, 7 males) aged between 19 and 51 years, 7 right-handers and 7 left-handers, were asked to complete re-training writing tasks by using their non-dominant hand over 10 consecutive days. It is possible for adults to learn quickly to write legibly with their non-dominant hand. Left handers have a higher legibility score initially although right-handers improved with training more than left-handers. Individual’s performance was unrelated to age and sex in the small sample studied.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Annett M. 2004. Hand preference observed in large healthy samples: Classification, norms and interpretations of increased non-right-handedness by the right shift theory. Br J Psychol 95:339–53.

Bryden PJ, Roy EA. 2005. Unimanuel performance across the age span. Brain Cogn 57:26–29.

Büsch D, Hagemann N, Bender N. 2010. The dimensionality of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory: An analysis with models of the item response theory. Laterality 15(6):610–28.

Chapman JA, Henneberg M. 1999. Switching the handedness of adults: results of 10 weeks training of the non-dominant hand, Perspectives in Human Biology 4(1):211–17.

Doyen A-L, Dufour T, Caroff X, Cherfouh A, Carlier M. 2008. Hand preference and hand performance: Cross-sectional developmental trends and family resemblance in degree of laterality. Laterality 13(2):179–97.

Gonzalez CL, Ganel T, Goodale MA. 2006. Hemispheric specialization for the visual control of action is independent of handedness. J Neurophysiol 95:3496–501. doi: 10.1152/jn.01187.2005

Kalisch T, Wilimzig C, Kleibel N, Tegenthoff M, and Dinse HR. 2006. Age-Related Attenuation of Dominant Hand Superiority. PLoS ONE 1(1):e90. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.000009

Kim Yong-Kyu. 2009. Handbook of behavior genetics. New York: Springer Science and Business Media.

Klöppel S, Vongerichten A, van Eimeren T, Frackowiak RSJ, Siebner HR. 2007. Can left-landedness be switched? Insights from an early switch of handwriting. J Neurosci 27(29):7847–53.

Króliczak G, Piper BJ, Frey SH. 2011. Atypical lateralization of language predicts cerebral asymmetries in parietal gesture representations. Neuropsychologia 49:1698–702.

Teixeira LA. 2000. Categories of manual asymmetry and their variation with advancing age. Cortex 44(6):707–16. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2006.10.002

Vuoksimaa E, Koskenvuo M, Rose RJ, Kaprio J. 2009. Origins of handedness: A nationwide study of 30 161 adults. Neuropsychologia 47:1294 –301.

Walker I, Henneberg M. 2007. Writing with non-dominant hand: cross-handedness trainability in adult individuals. Laterality 12(2):121–30. doi:10.1080/13576500600989665

Zverev YP. 2006. Cultural and environmental pressure against left-hand preference in urban and semi-urban Malawi. Brain Cogn 60:295–303.

Downloads

Published

30-07-2012

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Laskowski, Kristina, and Maciej Henneberg. 2012. “Writing With Non-Dominant Hand: Left-Handers Perform Better With the Right Hand Than Right Handers With the Left”. Anthropological Review 75 (2): 129-36. https://doi.org/10.2478/v10044-012-0012-4.

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 > >>