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Tests for Infant Left-Handedness



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.

 

  HAND, EYE, EAR, AND FOOT   Most people have not only a dominant hand, but a dominant eye, a dominant ear, and a dominant foot. In 1989, a study at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland found that the vast majority of left-handers consistently hold a phone to the left ear—a seemingly self-evident conclusion, except that it confirmed that most left-handed people are left-ear dominant as well. (And before you start thinking they hold it to the left ear simply because they’re left-handed, consider that, in fact, it might be more convenient to hold it to the right ear, leaving the left hand free for doodling and taking messages.) Likewise, most—though not all—left-handers are left-eye dominant and left-foot dominant as well. A minority of people are cross-dominant between hand and eye (that is, they’re left-hand dominant but have a dominant right eye, or vice versa). Such people, it has been speculated, tend to be more artistuc. According to some research, they may also be more prone to insomnia and dizziness. To determine which eye is your dominant one, extend your arms in front of you and form a triangle by touching your index fingers and thumbs. Visually center an object within the triangle. Close your right eye. If the subject stays reasonably centered within the triangle, you are left-eye dominant. If it appears ti jump, your right eye is most likely your dominant eye.  

 

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)

 

  EVERYBODY GOES TO “LEFTY’S” There’s one in almost every city in the United States: a “Lefty’s Bar and Grill, ” a “Lefty’s Motor Shop, ” a “Lefty’s Bike Repair.” “When we were kids, ” talk-show host Larry King once remarked, “we all admired ‘Lefty.’ ” For some, the nickname stuck, as illustrated by a sampling of businesses across the country:   Lefty’s Storage (Philadelphia) Lefty’s Cigar Store (Pittsburgh) Lefty’s Electrical and Refrigeration (Albuquerque) Lefty’s Welding (Detroit) Lefty’s Cocktail Lounge (Washington, D.C.) Lefty’s Moving Service (New Orleans) Lefty’s Barber Shop (Kansas City) Lefty’s Tavern (Cincinnati) Lefty’s Automotive (Chicago) Lefty’s Bar (Oklahoma City) Lefty’s Auto Electric (Phoenix)  

(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

 

  “Bart is trapped in a world where everyone else is struggling to be normal. Bart’s response to being normal is ‘No way, man! ’ He is irreverent; he never learns his lesson and is never repentant.” —Cartoonist Matt Groening, on his legendary left-handed cartoon creation, Bart Simpson. Simpson—whose first name is an acronym for “brat, ” and who was named one of People magazine’s “25 Most Intriguing People of 1990”—is often forced to stay after school writing contrite sentences such as “I WILL NOT INSTIGATE REVOLUTION” on the blackboard.  

 

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.”

 

  FIVE ABANDONED THEORIES OF LEFT-HANDEDNESS 1. Left-handedness is a willful, neurotic choice made by obstinate and antisocial individuals. Left-handedness, wrote psychiatrist Abram Blau in the 1940s, “is nothing more than an expression of infantile negativism and falls into the same category as... general perverseness.” Left-handers, he added, often come from families in which the mother is cold and inattentive and withholds affection. 2. All people are born right-handed. Some become left-handed because they are mentally or physically deficient and cannot properly learn right-handed skills. 3. Most people become right-handed because their arteries are stronger on the right side of their bodies; therefore, the muscles on the right (including in the right hand) are stronger as well. Left-handers have larger and more efficient arteries on the left side of their bodies. 4. Because the heart was once believed to lie in the left side of the chest, early warriors sought to protect it by carrying their shields with the left hand while holding their clubs and spears in the right. Thus the right hand became the species’ active hand and the left became the passive hand. Left-handed individuals are presumably descended from tribe members who rarely took part in fighting and who instead concentrated on agriculture, art, and other peaceful endeavors. 5. Left-handedness is the result of bad toilet training, in which the child becomes confused over which hand should be used for toilet hygiene and which should be used for other tasks.  

(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.

 

Left-Handers Are:

more eccentric less rigid more artistic better musicians more playful better athletes less belligerent less controlling more spontaneous more absentminded more spiritual more psychic less conventional more innovative more observant more sensual better designers better mathematicians more intuitive

 

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.

 

  HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT   Perhaps one of the most unusual advantages of being left-handed was described by hockey player Wayne Cashman of the Boston Bruins. Cashman claimed that left-handedness gave him an advantage in the frequent fistfights that occurred on the ice. “The key to a hockey fight, ” he once remarked to an interviewer, “is the first punch. When you’re a lefty and they’re looking for the right, it helps.”  

 

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.

 

LEFT-HANDED U.S. PLACE NAMES   Despite whatever prejudice has existed against the left hand (against the left anything), a scattering of places in the United States bear sinistral names, though in most instances ‘‘left” was used to refer to direction or geographical orientation:   Lefthand Bay, Alaska Left Cape, Arkansas Left Hand, West Virginia Left Hand Spring, Oklahoma Lefthand Creek, Colorado Lefthand Luman Creek, Wyoming   The only one named after a person is Lefthand Creek, Colorado, named after a nineteenth-century fur trader, Andrew Sublette, who was left-handed.  

(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.

 

  LEFTISTS VS. RIGHT-WINGERS The political terms “left-wing” and “right-wing” (“left” for liberals, “right” for conservatives) didn’t arise from any bias toward the left hand or any superstitions about the left side being weak or emotional. According to Thomas Carlyle in his monumental The French Revolution, the terms evolved during the pivotal French Assembly of 1789, when it became customary for the radicals and revolutionaries to sit together to the left of the presiding officer, while the more conservative aristocrats sat to the right. Hence, those who favored sweeping social reforms were of the “left wing” of the Assembly, while those who fought to maintain the status quo were of the “right wing.”  

 

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.

 

  HAND, EYE, EAR, AND FOOT   Most people have not only a dominant hand, but a dominant eye, a dominant ear, and a dominant foot. In 1989, a study at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland found that the vast majority of left-handers consistently hold a phone to the left ear—a seemingly self-evident conclusion, except that it confirmed that most left-handed people are left-ear dominant as well. (And before you start thinking they hold it to the left ear simply because they’re left-handed, consider that, in fact, it might be more convenient to hold it to the right ear, leaving the left hand free for doodling and taking messages.) Likewise, most—though not all—left-handers are left-eye dominant and left-foot dominant as well. A minority of people are cross-dominant between hand and eye (that is, they’re left-hand dominant but have a dominant right eye, or vice versa). Such people, it has been speculated, tend to be more artistuc. According to some research, they may also be more prone to insomnia and dizziness. To determine which eye is your dominant one, extend your arms in front of you and form a triangle by touching your index fingers and thumbs. Visually center an object within the triangle. Close your right eye. If the subject stays reasonably centered within the triangle, you are left-eye dominant. If it appears ti jump, your right eye is most likely your dominant eye.  

 

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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