Can you influence handedness

Ambidexterity and magical ideation. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition , 7 1 , 75— Christman, S. Mixed-handedness advantages in episodic memory obtained under conditions of intentional learning extend to incidental learning. Brain and Cognition , 77 1 , 17— Collins, R. When left-handed mice live in right-handed worlds. Science , , — Cooper, L. Mental rotation of random two-dimensional shapes. Cognitive Psychology , 7 1 , 20— Mental transformation in the identification of left and right hands.

Coren, S. Fifty centuries of right-handedness: The historical record. Posture influences motor imagery: An fMRI study. Neuroimage , 33 2 , — Article PubMed Google Scholar. Edlin, J. Memory for hand-use depends on consistency of handedness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , 7 , Erdfelder, E. Folk, M. Effects of stimulus complexity on mental rotation rate of polygons.

PubMed Google Scholar. Frey, S. A dissociation between the representation of tool-use skills and hand dominance: Insights from left- and right-handed callosotomy patients. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 17 2 , — Grafton, S. Rethinking the role of motor simulation in perceptual decisions.

Levin Ed. New York: Springer. Hardie, S. Frontiers in Psychology , 5 , Hegarty, M. Spatial abilities at different scales: Individual differences in aptitude-test performance and spatial-layout learning.

Intelligence, 34 2 , — Liu, W. A note on time-frequency analysis of finger tapping. Journal of Motor Behavior , 38 1 , 18— Lyle, K. Handedness is related to memory via hemispheric interaction: Evidence from paired associate recall and source memory tasks.

Neuropsychology , 22 4 , — Inconsistent handedness and saccade execution benefit face memory without affecting interhemispheric interaction. Memory , 19 6 , — Massy-Westropp, N. Hand grip strength: Age and gender stratified normative data in a population-based study.

BMC Research Notes , 4 1 , Masud, Y. Left-handed people in a right-handed world: A phenomenological study. Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 10 1 , 49— Google Scholar. Differing roles for the dominant and non-dominant hands in the hand laterality task.

Experimental Brain Research , 1 , 73— Nicholls, M. Magical ideation and its relation to lateral preference. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain, and Cognition , 10 6 , — Nico, D. Left and right hand recognition in upper limb amputees. Brain , 1 , — Oldfield, R. The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh inventory.

Neuropsychologia , 9 1 , 97— Parsons, L. Cognitive Psychology , 19 2 , — Temporal and kinematic properties of motor behavior reflected in mentally simulated action. Cerebrally lateralized mental representations of hand shape and movement. Journal of Neuroscience , 18 16 , — Pietsch, S. Brain and cognition: The relation between mental rotation and handedness is a consequence of how handedness is measured.

Brain and Cognition , January , 28— Previc, F. A general theory concerning the prenatal origins of cerebral lateralization in humans. Psychological Review , 98 3 , — Propper, R. A mixed-handed advantage in episodic memory: A possible role of interhemispheric interaction.

Schneider, W. E-Prime 2. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools. Sekiyama, K. Kinesthetic aspects of mental representations in the identification of left and right hands. Shepard, R. Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Smit, M. Laterality and body ownership: Effect of handedness on experience of the rubber hand illusion. Laterality , 22 6 , — Sperry, R. Hemisphere deconnection and unity in conscious awareness. American Psychologist , 23 10 , — Stieff, M. Mental rotation and diagrammatic reasoning in science.

Learning and Instruction , 17 2 , — Suitner, C. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition , 22 1 , 60— Viswanathan, S. Telling the right hand from the left hand: Multisensory integration, not motor imagery, solves the problem. Psychological Science , 23 6 , — Voyer, D. Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: a meta-analysis and consideration of critical variables.

Psychological bulletin, 2 , Westfall, J. Inaction inertia, the sunk cost effect, and handedness: Avoiding the losses of past decisions. Brain and Cognition , 80 2 , — Zacks, J. Mental spatial transformations of objects and perspective. Spatial Cognition and Computation , 2 4 , — Zaghloul, M.

A qualitative assessment of the impact of handedness among left-handed surgeons in Saudi Arabia. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition , 23 1 , 39— Zapparoli, L. Like the back of the right hand? A new fMRI look on the hand laterality task. Experimental Brain Research , 12 , — Download references. We thank Rie Davis for assisting in data collection, Dr. Shiva Viswanathan for sharing his expertise on this research topic and providing in-depth feedback on research theory and data interpretation, Dr.

Alexander Boone for his constructive suggestions on the experimental implementation and data analyses, and the whole SCRAM group for their feedback. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.

YC designed the study, collected data, analyzed data, interpreted results, and wrote the manuscript. MH designed the study, interpreted data, and wrote the manuscript. ERC designed the study, analyzed data, interpreted data, and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Correspondence to You Cheng. As a matter of fact, science can learn from left-handers, and in this paper, we discuss how this may be the case.

Despite many years of research, the reason why one person turns out to be a left-hander and another does not remains a mystery.

Handedness is partly heritable see Glossary : left-handed parents tend to have more left-handed children than right-handed parents do. A much debated influence is the level of the hormone testosterone in utero in the womb while an unborn child fetus is developing. Regarding the heritable factors, researchers have found several genes which may be involved in handedness.

Interestingly, it seems that there is not one gene which contributes to determining whether people are left-handed or not. Most likely, different genetic influences are involved. Of course, children learn from their caregivers, so one may expect that if one of the parents is left-handed, the child might become left-handed just by imitation. One reason why this cannot be the full story is that hand preference can already be observed before birth.

This observation of fetal handedness is at odds with the finding that some children seem to switch their hand preference, at least up to the age of 2 [ 3 , 4 ]. Perhaps some people are left- or right-handed at birth, whereas others develop their preference later on, during the first years of life.

Are you confused about what makes a person left-handed or not? So are we! Whatever the exact causes may be, this is not a simple story, but a very complex interplay of genes, environment, and chance. Let us leave this topic for now, and have a look at the left-handed brain. Sometimes, people are amazed to hear that the brains of left-handers are different from those of right-handers. But it is clear that they should differ in some respects: left-handers use their hands and feet differently than right-handers do, and they do this often over the course of a lifetime.

It is only natural that the parts of the brain that control movements should be different in left-handers and right-handers Figure 1. For the vast majority of people, the left hemisphere of the brain is the dominant one used for speech. And the same region of the left hemisphere that controls speech also controls hand actions. Evolutionary psychologists speculate that tool use and hand gestures played an important role in the evolution of human speech. One theory suggests that because vision is our primary sense, human communication first emerged as hand gestures.

As we became sophisticated tool users, it was more efficient to keep our hands free for tool use and our communication transferred to speech. The structured sequences of hand actions required to make and use tools may also have prepared the brain for language syntax. In order to acquire complex skills like language, children must first development basic sensory and motor abilities.

Developmental psychologists argue that fine motor capabilities like manipulating objects and gesturing sets the stage for acquiring systems required for the subsequent development of language. Early to midth century scientists considered left-handedness to be a developmental abnormality.

It was associated with a range of developmental dysfunctions ranging from language deficits to mental health disorders. The educational health content on What To Expect is reviewed by our medical review board and team of experts to be up-to-date and in line with the latest evidence-based medical information and accepted health guidelines, including the medically reviewed What to Expect books by Heidi Murkoff.

This educational content is not medical or diagnostic advice. Use of this site is subject to our terms of use and privacy policy. Registry Builder New. When Does Handedness Develop in Children? Medically Reviewed by Micah Resnick, M.

Medical Review Policy All What to Expect content that addresses health or safety is medically reviewed by a team of vetted health professionals. Back to Top. In This Article.