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Архитектура Аудит Военная наука Иностранные языки Медицина Металлургия Метрология Образование Политология Производство Психология Стандартизация Технологии |
Tests for Infant Left-HandednessСтр 1 из 7Следующая ⇒
The Torque Test The “Torque Test” was devised by Dr. Theodore Blau, a clinical psychologist from Tampa, Florida. Draw x’s on a page and then draw circles around the x’s, alternating back and forth between your left and right hands with each circle. Note the direction in which you draw the circles. According to Dr. Blau, a person who draws the circles using a counterclockwise motion is predominantly left-handed.
The Thumbnail Test Hold your thumbs up side by side and look carefully at the nails. According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, whichever thumbnail is wider and squarer at the base belongs to your dominant hand. If your left thumbnail is wider and squarer, you’re probably left-handed.
The Profile Test This is regarded by some experts as a highly reliable test of an individual’s handedness. Draw the profile of a person’s face (or use a dog’s profile or that of some other animal—whatever you feel most comfortable with). If, when you’re done, the profile you’ve drawn is facing right, then you’re most likely left-handed; if it’s facing left, you’re probably a natural right-hander.
The Key Tasks Test Handwriting is one of the most difficult motor control tasks; that’s why handedness is largely defined by the hand you write (p. 2) with. But check also to see which hand you use to comb your hair, deal cards, strike a match, play golf, pet your dog, open a door, drive screws, and operate your computer “mouse”. The Crovitz and Zener Group Test for Assessing Handedness (1962) gave test subjects a list of fourteen actions—including hammering nails, brushing teeth, threading a needle, pouring water from a pitcher, and peeling potatoes—to determine whether each task was usually performed with the left hand, the right hand, or with both hands equally.
If, for example, you write with your tight hand but instinctively do almost everything with your left, it’s possible you were (p. 3) born left-handed but were “switched” to right-handed penmanship by a teacher from the “old school” who believed that left-handedness should be drummed out of children.
The Shoelace Test Believe it or not, there is even a left-handed way of tying your shoes. Left-handers generally cross first with the left lace on top of the right lace, then form the first loop to the right.
The Happy Face Test Look carefully at the two faces below. Which of the two is the happy face?
According to some experts, if you chose face #1, you are probably left-handed. If you chose face #2, you are probably right-handed. The two faces are actually mirror images of one another; but the happy side (the side with the upturned lip) is the left side on face #1, while the happy side of face #2 is the right side. (p. 4)
A Note on Ambidexterity During the mid-nineteenth century, British painter Edwin Landseer used to astonish party guests by drawing a deer vat his left hand while simultaneously sketching a horse with his right. What particularly amazed people was that both sketches were dramatically detailed, perfectly realistic, and extraortftnaity beautiful. True ambidexterity—that is, the ability to use both hands equally well—is rare. Although many people claim to be ambidextrous, very few actually are. In fact researchers estimate that only 2 out of every 100 people are ambidextrous—and some experts say that even that figure is too high. (One recent study put the figure at one-third of one percent.) What many people really mean when they say they’re ambidextrous is that they do some important tasks with their non-dominant hand: a left-hander may deal cards or catch a ball with the right hand, and a right-hander may tie shoes or cut a steak with the left. Left-handers tend more toward ambidexterity for obvious reasons: it’s primarily a right-handed world, and left-handers must learn to adapt to right-handed tools, gadgets, and machinery at an early age. Far more than right-handers, they learn to use both of their hands to some degree. Interest in ambidexterity (What causes it? Can it be “taught”? Is the tendency inherited? ) has increased in the past several years, especially since it has numerous obvious advantages in (p. 8) professional sports (witness basketball player Larry Bird and tennis pro Luke Jensen). One of the most celebrated ambidextrous individuals of modern times is tennis champion Martina Navratilova. Navratilova started out writing left-handed—just like her mother—but because she kept getting ink smears all over her writing hand, a teacher suggested she try writing with her right hand instead. She did—and found, to her surprise, that it came as naturally as left-handed writing. She has told interviewrs that, much of the time and while engaged in a wide variety of activities, it just doesn’t occur to her to favor one hand over the other. She has won more than 1, 300 singles matches, including nine Wimbledon titles. (p. 9)
(p. 10)
World Leaders Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), Macedonian conqueror Napolé on Bonaparte (1769-1821), French emperor Fidel Castro (b. 1926), Cuban dictator Charlemagne (742-814), emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Edward III (1312-1377), king of England Elizabeth II (b. 1926), queen of England George II (1683-1760), king of England George VI (1895-1952), king of England Joan of Arc (ca. 1412-1431), French national heroine (p. 12) Louis XVI (1754-1793), king of France Ramses II (13 century B.C.), Egyptian pharaoh Tiberius (42 B.C.-A.D. 37), Roman emperor Victoria (1819-1901), queen of England
Artists Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), English photographer and costume designer M. C. Escher (1898-1972), Dutch artist Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian artist and scientist Michelangelo (1475-1564), Italian painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish painter Raphael (1483-1520), Italian painter
Cartoonists Cathy Guisewite (b. 1950), U.S. cartoonist Bill Mauldin (b. 1921), U.S. cartoonist Ronald Searle (b. 1920), English satitical cartoonist
Scientists Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (b. 1930), U.S. astronaut Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), French criminologist Nicole d’Oresme (1325-1382), French mathematician
Writers and Journalists
Dave Barry (b. 1948), U.S. author and journalist Peter Benchley (b. 1940), U.S. author Jim Bishop (1907-1967), U.S. author and journalist Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), British author Richard Condon (b. 1915), U.S. novelist Ted Koppel (b. 1940), U.S. broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965), U.S. broadcast journalist Forrest Sawyer (b. 1949), U.S. broadcast journalist Mark Twain (1835-1910), U.S. author
Classical Composers
Cart Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), German composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), Russian composer and pianist
Actors and Entertainers
Don Adams (b. 1926), U.S. actor June Allyson (b. 1917), U.S. actress Harry Anderson (b. 1952), U.S. actor Dan Aykroyd (b. 1952), Canadian actor
Robert Blake (b. 1933), U.S. actor Bruce Boxleitner (b. 1950), U.S. actor Matthew Broderick (b. 1962), U.S. actor Carol Burnett (b. 1933), U.S. comedian George Burns (b. 1896), U.S. entertainer Ruth Buzzi (b. 1936), U.S. comedian
Sid Caesar (b. 1922), U.S. comedian Keith Carradine (b. 1950), U.S. actor Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), British director, actor, and screenwriter Tom Cruise (b. 1962), U.S. actor
Bruce Davison (b. 1946), U.S. actor Olivia de Havilland (b. 1916), U.S. actress Robert De Niro (b. 1943), U.S. actor Richard Dreyfuss (b. 1947), U.S. actor
W. C. Fields (1879-1946), U.S. comic actor Peter Fonda (b. 1940), U.S. actor Allen Funt (b. 1914), U.S. television producer
Greta Garbo (1905-1990), Swedish-U.S. actress Judy Garland (1922-1969), U.S. singer and actress Paul Michael Glaser (b. 1943), U.S. actor Whoopi Goldberg (b. 1949), U.S. actress Betty Grable (1916-1973), U.S. entertainer Cary Grant (1904-1986), U.S. actor
Rex Harrison (1908-1990), British actor Goldie Hawn (b. 1945), U.S. actress (p. 16)
Jim Henson (1936-1990), U.S. “Muppets” creator Rock Hudson (1925-1985), U.S. actor
Danny Kaye (1913-1987), U.S. entertainer Diane Keaton (b. 1946), U.S. actress
Michael Landon (1936-1991), U.S. actor Hope Lange (b. 1931), U.S. actress Cloris Leachman (b. 1926), U.S. actress Jay Leno (b. 1950), U.S. comedian and talk-show host David Letterman (b. 1947), U.S. television personality Hal Linden (b. 1931), U.S. actor Cleavon Little (b. 1939), U.S. actor
Shirley MacLaine (b. 1934), U.S. actress and author Howie Mandel (b. 1955), Canadian comedian Marcel Marceau (b. 1923), French mime Wink Martindale (b. 1934), U.S. game-show host Harpo Marx (1888-1964), U.S. entertainer (p. 17) Andrew McCarthy (b. 1963), U.S. actor Kristy McNichoI (b. 1962), U.S. actress Steve McQueen (1930-1980), U.S. actor Anne Meara (b. 1929), U.S. comedian Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), U.S. actress
Kim Novak (b. 1933), U.S. actress
Ryan O’Neal (b. 1941), U.S. actor
Bronson Pinchot (b. 1959), U.S. actor Joe Piscopo (b. 1951), U.S. comedian Robert Preston (1918-1987), U.S. actor Richard Pryor (b. 1940), U.S. comedian
Robert Redford (b. 1937), U.S. actor Don Rickles (b. 1926), U.S. comedian Julia Roberts (b. 1967), U.S. actress Mickey Rourke (b. 1956), U.S. actor
Eva Marie Saint (b. 1924), U.S. actress Telly Savalas (b. 1924), U.S. actor Christian Slater (b. 1969), U.S. actor Brent Spiner (b. 1958), U.S. actor Terence Stamp (b. 1939), British actor
Alan Thicke (b. 1947), Canadian actor
Brenda Vaccaro (b. 1939), U.S. actress Karen Valentine (b. 1947), U.S. actress Rudy Vallee (1901-1986), U.S. entertainer Dick Van Dyke (b. 1925), U.S. actor
Wil Wheaton (b. 1972), U.S. actor Treat Williams (b. 1951), U.S. actor Bruce Willis (b. 1955), U.S. actor William Windom (b. 1923), U.S. actor (p. 18) Oprah Winfrey (b. 1954), U.S. actress and talk-show host Joanne Woodward (b. 1930), U.S. actress
Stephanie Zimbalist (b. 1956), U.S. actress
Sports Figures
Earl Anthony (b. 1938), U.S. championship bowler Larry Bird (b. 1956), U.S. basketball player Ty Cobb (1886-1961), U.S. basketball player Jimmy Connors (b. 1952), U.S. tennis champion James Corbett (1866-1933), U.S. heavyweight boxing champion Patty Costello (b. 1947), U.S. championship bowler Dwight F. Davis (1879-1945), U.S. founder of the Davis Cup
Lou Gehrig (1903-1941), U.S. baseball player Vernon “Lefty” Gomez (1908-1989), U.S. baseball player “Lefty” Grove (1900-1975), U.S. baseball player Dorothy Hamill (1903-1988), U.S. skating champion Keith Hernandez (b. 1953), U.S. baseball player Ben Hogan (b. 1912), U.S. golf pro Carl Hubbell (1903-1988), U.S. baseball player Reggie Jackson (b. 1946), U.S. baseball player Bruce Jenner (b. 1949), U.S. decathlon athlete (p. 19)
Sandy Koufax (b. 1935), U.S. baseball player Tommy Lasorda (b. 1927), U.S. baseball manager Rod Laver (b. 1938), Australian tennis champion Greg Louganis (b. 1960), U.S. Olympic diver
Willie McCovey (b. 1938), U.S. baseball player Stan Musial (b 1920), U.S. baseball player
Martina Navratilova (b. 1956), Czech-U.S. tennis champion Manuel Orantes (b. 1948), Spanish tennis champion Pele (b. 1940), Brazilian soccer player
Brooks Robinson (b. 1937), U.S. baseball player Bill Russell (b. 1934), U.S. basketball player Babe Ruth (1895-1948), U.S. baseball player Vin Scully (b. 1927), U.S. sports broadcaster Gary Sobers (b. 1936), international cricket champion from Barbados Warren Spahn (b. 1921), U.S. baseball player Mark Spitz (b. 1950), U.S. Olympic swimmer Ken Stabler (b. 1945), U.S. football player Casey Stengel (1891-1975), U.S. baseball manager Roscoe Tanner (b. 1951), U.S. tennis champion
Fernando Valenzuela (b. 1960), Mexican-U.S. baseball player Guillermo Villas (b. 1952), Argentinean tennis champion Bill Walton (b. 1952), U.S. basketball player Ted Williams (b. 1918), U.S. baseball player
Miscellaneous
Lord Baden-Powel (1857-1941), founder of the Boy Scouts F. Lee Baftey (b 1933), U.S. defense attorney Josephine de Beauhamais (1753-1814), consort to Napolé on Bonaparte Marie Dionne (1934-1960), one of the Dionne quintuplets Uri Geller (b. 1946), Israeli psychic Billy Graham (b 1918), U.S. evangelist (p. 20) Helen Keller (1880-1968), U.S. author and advocate for the blind and disabled Caroline Kennedy (b. 1957), daughter of President John F. Kennedy Martha Mitchell (1918-1976), U.S. political celebrity Oliver North (b. 1943), former White House aide Ron Reagan (b. 1958), son of President Ronald Reagan Mandy Rice-Davies (b. 1944), British call girl implicated in the Profumo scandal Renee Richards (b. 1934), U.S. transsexual and tennis player Norman Schwarzkopf (b. 1934), U.S. general Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), French medical missionary Richard Simmons (b. 1948), U.S. fitness guru
Some Uncommon Left-Handed Individuals
Right-Brain, Left-Brain
In order to understand some of the theories about left-handedness, it helps to know a few things about the brain first. The average human brain weighs almost three pounds (slightly more for males, slightly less for females), contains more than 100 billion neurons, and is divided into two very slightly asymmetrical hemispheres, the left and the right, with a complex mass of nerve fibers—the corpus callosum—connecting the two. The purpose of the corpus callosum—which is, for reasons yet unknown, as much as 11 percent larger in left-handers—seems to be, in part, the facilitation of “communication” between the two hemispheres. The two hemispheres tend to control different tasks. A vivid example of the way the hemispheres operate can be seen in some stroke victims who, though rendered totally unable to speak, may still be perfectly capable of singing. That’s because the left hemisphere of the brain tends to control many of our verbal functions, while our memory for music is usually located in the right hemisphere. This startling phenomenon was well documented as far back as 1754, when a doctor wrote of one of his stroke patients, “He can sing certain hymns, which he had learned before he became ill, as distinctly as any healthy person. (p. 51) Yet this man cannot say a single word except ‘yes.’” A stroke that affected the left hemisphere might weaken or eradicate person’s ability to remember words or speak them, but would leave the ability to sing some of those same words intact. Other functions sometimes attributed to the right hemispher includes:
spatial sense depth perception the ability to recognize faces the ability to invest speech with meaningful emotional nuances
Functions often attributed to the left hemisphere include: logic skills a memory for names the ability to speak and form coherent sentences the ability to dissect and analyze difficult concepts
In years past, it’s been popular to overdramatize the dichotomy between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere, it was commonly said, can only analyze things in a rigid, logical, sequential manner (much as a computer does), while the right hemisphere tends to absorb and reflect intuitively on what it sees. “Getting in touch’’ with the right side of the brain (allegedly the more mysterious and artistic side) had a certain fashionability for several years. However, neurologists and brain researchers increasingly tend to view this dichotomy as simplistic and naive. Recent research indicates that brain functions are much more complicated; a proper integration of who we are, our humanness, depends on the two hemispheres side by side. And whereas, for example, the left side of the brain may indeed govern verbal abilities in some people, for other people those same abilities may reside in the right hemisphere or be spread in a complex manner across both hemispheres. “We’re trying to understand the most complex piece of matter (p. 52) in the known universe, ” brain researcher Jerre Levy, of the University of Chicago, has said. “No complex function—music, art or whatever—can be assigned to one hemisphere or the other. Any high-level thinking in a normal person involves constant communication between the two sides of the brain.”
(p. 53)
“Cross-Wiring” Human beings are ‘“cross-wired”—that is, the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body. Generally speaking, then, the left hand is governed by the right hemisphere; the right hand is governed by the left—leatfing to the popular T-shirt and coffee mug slogan:
“If the right side of the body is controlled by the left side of the brain, and the left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain, then left-handed people are the only ones in their right minds.”
A Surge of Hormones Other researchers maintain that left-handedness is the result of hormone imbalances—specifically, irregularities in the levels of testosterone—in the mother’s body during pregnancy. This theoretically causes the right hemisphere of the brain to develop more quickly, thus giving dominance to the left hand. Although testosterone is primarily known as a male sex hormone, it plays an important role in the fetal development of both sexes, and exerts a powerful influence on the normal development of the fetal brain. Once we have been born and have matured, much higher levels of testosterone can be found in men than women. However, with age those levels gradually decrease in men and increase in women. Given all that, one might expect that older mothers would, on average, have more left-handed children. As it turns out, that’s exactly what happens: more left-handers are born to older mothers than to younger mothers.
Birth Order A 1989 study at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, bund no correlation between left-handedness and birth order.
Heredity What role does heredity play in who becomes left-handed and who doesn’t? Even while we’re still in the womb, we use our hands: we suck our thumbs. Recent studies indicate that while the majority of fetuses (95 percent) suck their right thumbs, 5 percent prefer to suck the left thumb. This seems to suggest that hand dominance may be determined before environmental factors come into play. (p. 55) There’s more intriguing evidence for the role of heredity: Two right-handed parents have only a 10 percent chance of producing a left-handed child. If only the father is left-handed, the odds are still the same: 1 in 10. If only the mother is left-handed, the odds increase to roughly 1 in 5. But if both parents are left-handed, there is a staggering 40 to 50 percent chance that the child will also be a left-hander.
Danger on the Left
“You should never pick up a newspaper when you’re feeling good, because every newspaper has a special department, called the Bummer Desk, which is responsible for digging up depressing front-page stories with headlines like DOORBELL USE LINKED TO LEUKEMIA and OZONE LAYER COMPLETELY GONE DIRECTLY OVER YOUR HOUSE” —Left-Hander Dave Barry
The notion that the disadvantages faced by left-handers might be more than negligible was first broached many years ago with (p. 63) studies purporting to show that left-handed children
The Avantages Anecdotal testimony abounds as to the advantages of left- handedness. “It makes me a better basketball player.” (p. 67) “Left-handers are more creative and imaginative.” “All the left-handers I know have a greater zest for fife.” “All the best architects are left-handed.” “Left-handedness gives one an advantage m the arts.” Unfortunately, medical science—so seemingly obsessed with what’s wrong with left-handers—hasn’t exerted much energy probing what’s exceptional about them. Over the years, a truly amazing assortment of characteristics have been anecdotally attributed to left-handed people.
Show this list to a majority of left-handers and ask whether most of it applies to them, and they’ll say, “Of course.” The problem is, show the same list to a majority of right-handers and ask whether most of it applies to them—and the answer will also be, “Of course.” It all begins to sound like one of those Chinese-restaurant placemats (“Tell us the year you were born, and we’ll tell you all about yourself’): specific enough to be flattering, but vague enough to suit anyone. Some of the facts, then, about the very real advantages of being left-handed:
Left-handedness has been linked to exceptional mathematical and verbal abilities. Despite the reputation left-handers have for being slow to learn and verbally clumsy, studies (p. 68) have shown shown that among verbally precocious young people, there is a disproportionately high number of left-handers. In fact one study at Johns Hopkins University found that of high school seniors scoring 630 or better on the verbal section of the SAT, more than 20 percent were left-handed—roughly twice the rate of left-handers in the general population. Left-handers are also overrepresented among the mathematically gifted. Left-handed males, in particular, tend to achieve higher than average scores on the mathematics section of the SAT.
Left-handers, on the whole, recover better from certain kinds of strokes and brain injuries. People who are left-handed have fewer problems with paralysis—and more quickly recover damaged functions such as speech—after a stroke or moderate injury. Some researchers have speculated that, by comparison with a right-hander’s brain, the two hemispheres of a left-hander’s brain function more equally, and one side is better prepared to take over if the other side is impaired.
Left-handedness gives some athletes a decided advantage in certain sports. About 50 percent of the players in the Baseball Hall of Fame are either left-handed or switch-hitters. And it’s been estimated that nearly 40 percent of the top tennis pros are left-handed. Left-handers—either natural or “situational’’—have an edge in both sports, as well as in boxing. (More about the left-handed sports advantage in chapters 8 and 9.) Meanwhile, because it has been tentatively linked to better (p. 69) underwater vision, left-handedness is also said to give swimmerti and divers an advantage.
Left-handers have a better memory for music than right-handers. Studies have shown that left-handers have better pitch recall than right-handers, perhaps because the area of the brain that stores musical memory is typically located in the right hemisphere.
Left-handers have a better recovery rate than right-handers from severe hand injuries. Given that left-handers are regularly forced by necessity to use both of their hands in a primarily right-handed society, it should come as no surprise that they have an advantage over right-handers in adjusting to an injury to the dominant hand.
Left-handers are faster and more adept at typing and word processing. This is at least in part because left-handers are better at using both hands; but it’s also because the keys most commonly struck—e, a, s, and t—are all on the left side of the keyboard.
Generally, left-handers can read backward (or backward and upside down) much better than right-handers. This unusual ability—though it has few practical advantages—may indicate a higher degree of certain kinds of mental flexibility among left-handed people.
(p. 70)
The Creativity Question Are left-handers more creative than right-handers? Are they more innovative and less bound by orthodox precepts and rigid models of problem solving? The answer is: maybe. In general, some studies have found a link—still nebulous and theoretical—between left-handedness and creativity. It may be correlated with the structure of the brain: with the larger than average corpus callosum enhancing “communication” between the two hemispheres, or with the way in which information, memory, and various skills are “processed” within some left-handers’ brains. It may also have something to do with the not insignificant fact that anytime you’re not one of the majority, you have to become more creative. When you’re not raised within the social parameters that most people grow up inside, you’re sometimes free to look beyond them. For example, a left-handed child who must discover on his or her own how to write left-handedly in school (rather than with the carefully prescribed lessons developed for right-handed children) gets an early and potentially personality-shaping lesson in creative problem solving. (Unfortunately, that child may also get a lesson in aggravation and anxiety.) A lot of questions remain to be answered on the entire issue. But, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once observed, “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
Portsiders and Southpaws In the face of all this, it’s perhaps surprising that there are no derogatory terms for left-handed people in common usage in the English language. In fact, most of the terms—lefties, left-handers, left-siders—are straightforward. Add to these the not-unfriendly term southpaws, as well as portsiders (from the “port” side of a ship), cat-handed (popular in some parts (p. 77) of England), pen-pushers (from the fact that most left-handers have to push the pen across the paper when they write, instead of drag it as right-handers do), and the aforementioned sinistrals. Two notable exceptions are the Australian slang term molly-dukers (“molly” meaning effeminate, and “dukers” referring to hands) and the British colloquialism cack-handed (“cack” being slang for excrement)—which brings us back to the odious notion of the “unclean” hand.
“The unwashen hand leads to blindness, the hand leads to deafness, the hand causes a polypus. ” —The Talmud
Was Eve Left-Handed?
“Labels are devices for saving talkative persons the trouble of thinking. ” —John Morley
Michelangelo portrayed Eve as having taken the forbidden fruit with her left hand, while the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck depicted her doing the same thing with her right. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Devil himself has traditionally been portrayed as left-handed or as lingering over the left side of his latest victim: hence the old superstition of tossing a pinch of salt over your left shoulder—“right into the Devil’s face”—to ward off bad luck. And the left hand—the left anything—has, for centuries, been heaped with suggestions of sin, betrayal, and demon worship. In the Middle Ages, it was said that saints sometimes revealed their piety very early in life by refusing to suckle their mother’s left breast. In the New Testament, Christ tells his disciples that on (p. 78) Judgment Day, God will summon the faithful to his right side and the unsaved to his left: “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Meanwhile, Judas has frequently been portrayed, in depictions of the Last Supper, as having been seated immediately to Christ’s left. The Devil is almost always depicted as holding his pitchfork in the left hand, while witches—his emissaries on earth—were long said to cause pain, disease, and injury with just a touch of the left hand. Even today it is considered obligatory to offer or receive Communion, or to make the sign, of the cross, with the right hand— not the left.
(p. 79)
The Wisdom of the Zunis Admittedly, there are some superstitions that are well disposed to the left hand. Among the Zuni Indians, for example, the left side of the body represents wisdom and contemplation, while the right side symbolizes impulsiveness and a desire for action. The Zunis believe that of the two hands, the left is the older and the wiser.
Prejudice in the Schoolroom In the early 1900s, American writer and educator A. N. Palmer held symposiums across the country explaining that left-handed children should be forced to write with their right hands, whether they liked it or not. His rationale was simple: it’s a right-handed world, and young people must be taught the value of conformity. Until a few decades ago, left-handed schoolchildren were an easy target for parents and teachers—especially teachers, most of whom insisted that their left-handed pupils learn to write with their right hands. The methods employed were often extreme, tying the left hand to the desk so the student couldn’t use it, whacking the left hand with a ruler to “condition” the student to write ‘“properly, ” loudly berating or humiliating a child for left-handedness in front of the other students. The USSR, China, Germany, and many of the Iron Curtain countries were particularly unforgiving in this respect: writing with the left hand was forbidden altogether. Left-handed Soviet é migré s often have unusual stories of their treatment at school: heavy, cumbersome weights tied to their left hands (the idea was to weigh it down so it couldn’t be used, but as one Ukrainian woman later noted with irony, “All it did was make my left hand stronger”), having their left arms tied behind their backs twenty-four hours a day, even having scalding water poured on their left hands. In the United States, things were scarcely better, though it (p. 82) always depended on the individual teacher. And even when the teacher was more enlightened and didn’t forbid the use of the left hand in penmanship, southpaws were still often left to their own devices trying to figure out how to write left-handedly. Few teachers, for example, simply told them to try tilting the paper thirty degrees to the right, just as right-handers tilt the paper thirty degrees to the left.
Sadly, the same prejudices often extended to home. In fact, during the first half of the twentieth century, some parents exhibited an inexplicable fanaticism on the subject, and seemed to equate left-handedness with deformity or sickness. “What’s wrong with my daughter? ” a mother would ask the doctor. “She’s left-handed.” Or a left-handed child might be met with a disparaging, “You can’t possibly be left-handed. There are no left-handers in our family! ” If such treatment was persistent and the parent was “successful” in breaking the child’s “obstinacy, ” the result was sometimes dyslexia, stuttering, feelings of inferiority, and an inability to tell left from right. All of which just goes to show that of all superstitions, a mania for conformity is probably the worst. (p. 83)
The Torque Test The “Torque Test” was devised by Dr. Theodore Blau, a clinical psychologist from Tampa, Florida. Draw x’s on a page and then draw circles around the x’s, alternating back and forth between your left and right hands with each circle. Note the direction in which you draw the circles. According to Dr. Blau, a person who draws the circles using a counterclockwise motion is predominantly left-handed.
The Thumbnail Test Hold your thumbs up side by side and look carefully at the nails. According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, whichever thumbnail is wider and squarer at the base belongs to your dominant hand. If your left thumbnail is wider and squarer, you’re probably left-handed.
The Profile Test This is regarded by some experts as a highly reliable test of an individual’s handedness. Draw the profile of a person’s face (or use a dog’s profile or that of some other animal—whatever you feel most comfortable with). If, when you’re done, the profile you’ve drawn is facing right, then you’re most likely left-handed; if it’s facing left, you’re probably a natural right-hander.
The Key Tasks Test Handwriting is one of the most difficult motor control tasks; that’s why handedness is largely defined by the hand you write (p. 2) with. But check also to see which hand you use to comb your hair, deal cards, strike a match, play golf, pet your dog, open a door, drive screws, and operate your computer “mouse”. The Crovitz and Zener Group Test for Assessing Handedness (1962) gave test subjects a list of fourteen actions—including hammering nails, brushing teeth, threading a needle, pouring water from a pitcher, and peeling potatoes—to determine whether each task was usually performed with the left hand, the right hand, or with both hands equally.
If, for example, you write with your tight hand but instinctively do almost everything with your left, it’s possible you were (p. 3) born left-handed but were “switched” to right-handed penmanship by a teacher from the “old school” who believed that left-handedness should be drummed out of children.
The Shoelace Test Believe it or not, there is even a left-handed way of tying your shoes. Left-handers generally cross first with the left lace on top of the right lace, then form the first loop to the right.
The Happy Face Test Look carefully at the two faces below. Which of the two is the happy face?
According to some experts, if you chose face #1, you are probably left-handed. If you chose face #2, you are probably right-handed. The two faces are actually mirror images of one another; but the happy side (the side with the upturned lip) is the left side on face #1, while the happy side of face #2 is the right side. (p. 4)
Tests for Infant Left-Handedness To test the hand preference of your young child, some pediatricians recommended tossing a ball to the child and seeing which hand he or she instinctively uses to grab it. Or, at meals, place a spoon midway between the left hand and the right hand and watch to see which hand the child uses to pick it up. Although hand preference is not, according to many authorities, definitely established ubtil a child is between three and six years old, there are many early clues. “Don’t play to one hand or the other, ” advises Dr. Jeannine Herron of the University of California at San Francisco, “but allow the preference to emerge naturally.”
Keep in mind that when all is said and done, if you do write with your left hand, you are entitled to call yourself a left-hander, and no one is apt to argue with you.
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