Handedness and cognitive abilities

Filippos Vlachos, Fotini Bonoti

Abstract


Hand preference - which is related to brain dominance - is thought to be associated with cognitive development. The purpose of the study was to attempt to outline the issue of the relationship between hand preference and the development of cognitive skills. The brief review of recent large-scale surveys and meta-analyses suggests that the various factors which intervene in the relationship of hand preference with cognitive development do not allow us to draw safe conclusions. Nonetheless, left-handed, right-handed and ambidextrous individuals appear to have different abilities at different stages of development, presenting variations in special as well as general cognitive abilities.


Keywords


cognitive abilities, handedness

References


Allendorfer, J. B., Hernando, K. A., Hossain, S., Nenert, R., Holland, S. K., & Szaflarski, J. P. (2016). Arcuate fasciculus asymmetry has a hand in language function but not handedness. Human Brain Mapping, 37(9), 3297-3309. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23241

Andreou, G., Vlachos, F., & Andreou, E. (2005).Affecting factors in second language learning. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 34, 429-438. doi: 10.1007/s10936-005-6202-0

Annett, M. (1985).Left, right, hand and brain: The right shift theory. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. doi: 10.1080/14640748608401611e

Bishop, D. (1990). Handedness and developmental disorder. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Βλάχος, Φ. (2016). Αριστεροχειρία: Μύθοι και πραγματικότητα. Θεσσαλονίκη: Εκδ. Κυριακίδης.

Crow, T., Crow, L., Done, D., & Leask, S. (1998). Relative hand skill predicts academic ability: global deficits at the point of hemispheric indecision. Neuropsychologia, 36, 1275–1282. doi: 10.1016/s0028-3932(98)00039-6

Fidan, T., Dane, S., Deveci, E., & Kirpinar, I. (2009). Higher ambidexterity in children with intellectual deficiency of idiopathic origin. Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research, 16, 59-62.

Flanagan, D. & McDonough, E. (2018). Contemporary Intellectual Assessment, Fourth Edition: Theories, Tests, and Issues. New York: The Guilford Press.

Geschwind, N., & Galaburda, A. M. (1987). Cerebral lateralization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gordon, H. (1921). Left-handedness and mirror writing, especially among defective children. Brain, 43, 313-368. doi: 10.1093/brain/43.4.313

Grouios, G., Sakadami, N., Poderi, A., & Alevriadou, A. (1999). Excess of non-right handedness among individuals with intellectual disability: Experimental evidence and possible explanations. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 43, 306-313. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2788.1999.00217.x

Hellige, J. B., Bloch, M., Cowin, E., Eng, T., Eviatar, Z., & Sergent, V. (1995). Individual variation in hemispheric asymmetry: Multitask study of effects related to handedness and sex. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123(3), 235-256.

Hicks, R. A., & Barton, A. K. (1975). A note on left-handedness and severity of mental relation. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 127, 323-324.

Johnston, D., Nicholls, M., Shah, M., & Shields, M. (2013). Handedness, health and cognitive development: evidence from children in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 176(4), 1841-1860.

Johnston, D., Nicholls, M., Shah, M., & Shields, M. (2009). Nature’s experiment? Handedness and early childhood development. Demography, 46, 281-301. doi:10.1353/dem.0.0053

Karapetsas, A., & Vlachos, F. (1992). Visuomotor organization in the left-handed child: A neuropsychological approach. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 75, 699-705. doi: 10.2466/pms.1992.75.3.699

Kemp, A. H., Hatch, A., & Williams, L. M. (2009). Computerized neuropsychological assessments: Pros and cons. CNS Spectrums, 14, 118-119. doi:10.1017/S1092852900020083

Knecht, S., Drager, B., Flöel, A., Lohmann, H., Breitenstein, C., Henningsen, H., & Ringelstein, E. B. (2001). Behavioural relevance of atypical language lateralizationin healthy subjects. Brain, 124, 1657-1665. doi: 10.1093/brain/124.8.1657

Leconte, P. & Fagard, J. (2006). Lateral preferences in children with intellectual deficiency of idiopathic origin. Developmental Psychobiology, 48, 492-500. doi: 10.1002/dev.20291

Lewin, J., Kohen, D., & Mathew, G. (1993). Handedness in mental handicap: Investigation into populations of Down’s syndrome, epilepsy and autism. British Journal of Psychiatry, 163, 674-676.doi: 10.1192/bjp.163.5.674

Mazoyer, B., Zago, L., Jobard, G., Crivello, F., Joliot, M., Perchey, G., Mazoyer, B., Zago, L., Jobard, G., Crivello, F., Joliot, M., Perchey, G., Mellet, E., Petit, L., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2014). Gaussian mixture modeling of hemispheric lateralization for language in a large sample of healthy individuals balanced for handedness. PloS one, 9(6), e101165. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0101165

McManus, I. C. (2002). Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Mellet, E., Jobard, G., Zago, L., Crivello, F., Petit, L., Joliot, M., Mazoyer, B., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2014). Relationships between hand laterality and verbal and spatial skills in 436 healthy adults balanced for handedness, Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 19, 383-404. doi: 10.1080/1357650X.2013.796965

Morris, R. & Romski, M. (1993).Handedness Distribution in a non-speaking population with mental retardation. American Journal of Mental Retardation, 97, 443-448.

Natsopoulos, D., Kiosseoglou, G., & Xeromeritou, A.(1992). Handedness and spatial ability in children - further support for Geschwind hypothesis of pathology of superiority and for Annett theory of intelligence. Genetic Social and General Psychology Monographs, 118, 103-126.

Natsopoulos, D., Kiosseoglou, G., Xeromeritou, A., & Alevriadou, A. (1998). Do the hands talk on mind's behalf? Differences in language ability between left- and right-handed children. Brain & Language, 64, 182-214. doi: 10.1006/brln.1998.1970

Natsopoulos, D., Koutselini, M., Kiosseoglou, G., & Koundouris, F. (2002). Differences in language performance in variations of lateralization. Brain & Language, 82, 223-240. doi: 10.1016/S0093-934X(02)00019-6

Nicholls, M., Chapman, H., Loetscher, T., & Grimshaw, G. (2010). The relationship between hand preference, hand performance, and general cognitive ability. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 16(4), 585-592. doi: 10.1017/S1355617710000184

Ntolka, E. & Papadatou-Pastou, M. (2018). Right-handers have negligibly higher IQ scores than left-handers: Systematic review and meta-analyses. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Review, 84, 376-393. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.08.007

Papadatou-Pastou, M. (2018). Handedness and cognitive ability: Using meta-analysis to make sense of the data. Progress in Βrain Research, 238, 179-206. doi: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.06.008

Papadatou-Pastou, M. & Tomprou, D-M. (2015). Intelligence and handedness: Meta-analyses of studies on intellectually disabled, typically developing, and gifted individuals. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Review, 56, 151-165. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.06.017

Rengstorff, R. (1967). The types and incidence of hand-eye preference and its relationship with certain reading abilities. American Journal of Optometry & Archives of American Academy of Optometry, 44, 233-238. doi: 10.1097/00006324-196704000-00004

Ross, G., Lipper, E. & Auld, P. (1987). Hand preference of four-year-old children: its relationship to premature birth and neurodevelopmental outcome. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 29, 615-622. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8749.1987.tb08503.x

Segalowitz, S., & Bryden, M. (1983).Individual differences in hemispheric representation of language. In S. J. Segalowitz (Ed.) Language Functions and Brain Organization (pp.341-372). New York: Academic Press.

Singh-Manoux, A., Ferrie, J., Lynch, J., & Marmot, M. (2005). The role of cognitive ability (intelligence) in explaining the association between socioeconomic position and health: evidence from the Whitehall II prospective cohort study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 161(9), 831–839. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwi109

Somers, M., Shields, L., Boks, M., Kahn, R., & Sommer, I. (2015). Cognitive benefits of right-handedness: a meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 51, 48-63. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.01.003

Szaflarski, J., Binder, J., Possing, E., McKiernan, Κ., Ward, Β., & Hammeke, T. (2002). Language lateralization in left-handed and ambidextrous people: fMRI data. Neurology, 59(2), 238–244. doi: 10.1212/WNL.59.2.238

Szaflarski, J.,Rajagopal, A., Altaye, M., Byars, A., Jacola, L., Schmithorst, V., Schapiro, M., Planteh, E., & Holland, S.(2012). Left-handedness and language lateralization in children. Brain Research, 1433, 85-97.

Vlachos, F., & Bonoti, F. (2004α). Handedness and writing performance. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 98, 815-824.

Vlachos, F., & Bonoti, F. (2004β). Left- and right-handed children’s drawing performance: Is there any difference? Laterality, 9, 397-409.

Vlachos, F., Gaillard, F., Vaitsis, K., & Karapetsas, A. (2013). Developmental risk: Evidence from large non right-handed samples. Child Development Research, Article ID 169509, 10 pages, 2013. doi:10.1155/2013/16950

Vlachos, F., & Karapetsas, A. (1994). Visuomotor organization in the right-handed and left-handed child: A comparative neuropsychological approach. Applied Neuropsychology, 1, 33-37. doi: 10.1080/09084282.1994.9645328

Vlachos, F., & Karapetsas, A. (1996). Visuomotororganization and memory in the right-handed and left-handed child: A comparative neuropsychological approach. Child Neuropsychology, 2(3), 204-212. doi: 10.1080/09297049608402253

Vlachos, F., & Karapetsas, A. (1999). A developmental study of handedness in Down syndrome pupils. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 88, 427-428. doi: 10.2466/pms.1999.88.2.427

Vlachos, F., Stavroussi, P., & Pisina, A. (2012). Handedness distribution in children and adolescents with genetic syndromes associated with intellectual disability. In M. Vucovic (Ed.) Proceedings of the Sixth International Scientific Conference “Special Education and Rehabilitation Today” (pp. 81-85). Belgrade: University of Belgrade.

Woodley of Menie, M., Fernandes, H., Kanazawa, S., & Dutton, E. (2018). Sinistrality is associated with (slightly) lower general intelligence: A data synthesis and consideration of the secular trend in handedness. HOMO-Journal of Comparative Human Biology, 69, 118-126. doi: 10.1016/j.jchb.2018.06.003




DOI: https://doi.org/10.26262/sasp.v13i0.7737

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Scientific Annals: School of Psychology AUTh | eISSN: 2585-3783 | Published works of this publication are licensed under CC BY 4.0 International