Lateral Preferences and Human Behavior

291 Pages·1981·11.431 MB·English

by  Clare Porac, Stanley Coren (auth.)

Lateral Preferences
and Human Behavior
Clare Porae
Stanley Coren
Lateral Preferences
and Human Behavior
With 21 Figures
Springer-Verlag
New York Heidelberg Berlin
Clare Porac Stanley Coren
Department of Psychology Department of Psychology
University of Victoria University of British Columbia
Victoria, British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V8W 2Y2 Canada V6T 1W 5
The quotation on page 93 is from The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough,
Copyright © 1977 by Colleen McCullough. Reprinted by permission of
Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Porac, Clare.
Lateral preferences and human behavior.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Left and right (Psychology) 2. Human behavior.
3. Laterality. l. Coren, Stanley. II. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Behavior. 2. Laterality. WL 335 P832L]
BF637.L36P67 152.3/35 81-8978
AACR2
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form without written
permission from Springer-Verlag.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc. in this publication,
even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such
names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly
be used freely by anyone.
© 1981 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981
987 6 543 2 1
ISBN-13:978-1-4613-8141-9 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4613-8139-6
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4613-8139-6
To our parents,
Ben, Chesna,
Joseph, and Katherine
Preface
Lateral preferences are strange, puzzling, and on the surface, not particularly
adaptive aspects of behavior. Why one chooses habitually to write or to brush the
teeth with the right hand, while a friend or family member habitually uses the left
hand, might be interesting enough to elicit some conversation over dinner or a
drink, but certainly does not seem to warrant serious scientific study. Yet when
one looks at human behaviors more carefully, one becomes aware that asymmet
rical behaviors favoring one side or the other are actually a fairly universal
characteristic of human beings. In the same way that we are right or left handed,
we are also right or left footed, eyed, and eared. As a species, we are quite
lopsided in our behavioral coordinations; furthermore, the vast majority of us are
right sided. Considering that we are looking at a sizable number of behaviors,
and at a set of biases that seem to be systematic and show a predictable skew in
the popUlation, the problem takes on greater significance.
The most obvious form of lateral preference is, of course, handedness. When
studying behavioral asymmetries, this is the issue with which most investigators
start. Actually, we entered this research area through a much different route.
Around 1971 we became interested in the problem of eye dominance or eye
preference. This is a behavior where the input to one eye seems to be preferred
over that to the other in certain binocular viewing situations. Such asymmetries
were, at the time, little understood in reference to vision. As our work continued
over the next three years it began to take a new tum. The impetus for this change
came from our increasing knowledge of the literature and from interactions with
numerous colleagues. It seemed that there was a notion existing in the field that
accepted the concept of sidedness, but assumed that all forms of sidedness were
simply correlates of the same process that causes handedness. Thus, many of our
conversations with colleagues were punctuated with responses such as "Oh, yes,
the dominant eye is the eye on the same side of the body as the dominant hand,
isn't it?" The problem was that we simply did not know enough about the issue
to either agree or disagree. The question had never been directly addressed in our
work. The literature was not particularly helpful either, so if we were to satisfy
viii Preface
our curiosity about the issue of the relationship between eye and hand preference,
it seemed that we had to gather our own data.
By 1975 we were committed to a much broader research effort. By then we
had been inundated by large amounts of data that began to shed light on the
relationship between the preferred eye and the preferred hand, and also on how
these were related to the preferred foot and ear. Furthermore, we had started to
recognize that these simple lateral preference behaviors might be related to many
other aspects of human behavior, ranging from sensorimotor coordinations to
cognitive skills and even to some aspects of the behavior of certain clinical
populations. We also were reasonably sure that the issue was fascinating not only
to us, but to many luminaries in the history of thought, including Plato,
Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, William James, John B. Watson, James
Mark Baldwin, Paul Broca, J. Hughlings Jackson, Sigmund Freud, and many
others drawn from the diverse areas of physiology, psychology, philosophy,
anthropology, and even physics. Everyone, it seemed, at one time or another had
a question to ask, a speculation to put forth, or some data that seemed to bear
upon the issue of behavioral asymmetries in the form of lateral preferences.
This book represents the results of nearly a decade of interest in and research
into the problems of lateral preference. We have concentrated on the preferences
manifested in hand, foot, eye, and ear use. This study subsumes a mass of data
and theory, but like all multifaceted research efforts, it ultimately raises more
questions that it answers. However, it does contain a wealth of data and analyses
from approximately 20,000 individuals. We believe that it gives an accurate
picture of how lateral preferences are distributed in humans, how they manifest
themselves, and how they are related to other aspects of behavior.
We have arranged the chapters of the book in a sequence that starts with the
measurement and presentation of lateral preference norms for a large human
sample, followed by chapters that deal with the major theoretical viewpoints
concerning the formation of lateral preferences. The latter portion of the book
focuses on the various behaviors that have been connected to lateral preferences
and that have been thought to covary with them. We present our data in each
chapter and discuss both patterns within each index of preference and patterns of
sidedness relationships across the various preference types. Although most
empirical and theoretical literature is dominated by papers dealing only with
handedness, we have tried to give a balanced view by presenting in each chapter
both data relating to and discussions of all four forms of lateral preference. In the
service of literary as well as scientific ideals, we have streamlined the
descriptions of methodological detail and statistical analysis, except in Chapter
2, where we set the methodological context. All of the figures, graphs, and tables
are original and unique to this book. However, some of the data presented here
have been published elsewhere, usually in an altered format. These sources have
been cited where appropriate.
Because human lateral preferences, especially handedness, have been linked
closely to processes of neural and cerebral lateralization of function, we know
that many individuals who read this book will do so because of their interest in
Preface ix
these topics. However, this is not a book about cerebrallateralization; it is a book
about human sidedness behaviors. We deal with the topics of cerebral and neural
lateralization because many of the theories concerning lateral preferences have
emanated from a consideration of these processes. However, our emphasis
throughout the book is on the behavioral rather than the cerebral asymmetry of
function. Thus, our often brief discussions of many topics related to cerebral
lateralization do not reflect a lack of awareness and knowledge of these areas;
rather they reflect a purposive attempt to keep the discussion relevant to the topic
of human behavioral asymmetries. In many instances, detailed discussions and
descriptions of matters related to cerebrallateralization would have taken us far
afield from lateral preference.
It should be obvious that an effort of this scope and duration could not have
been completed by two people working alone. We acknowledge and express our
gratitude to a number of sources of assistance, cooperation, and support. First,
and most important, we thank the large numbers of subjects who participated in
our various studies and who, in most instances, gave voluntarily of their time for
no financial recompense. Many universities, colleges, community colleges, high
schools, day care centers, senior citizens' organizations, hospitals, sporting
federations, and athletic teams provided the points of contact that enabled us to
collect the necessary data that form the basis of this monograph. These
organizations and institutions are located not only in British Columbia, but
throughout the United States and Canada, and unfortunately they are too
numerous to mention individually. However, we thank the staff members and
officers of the various organizations who assisted us in collecting the data and all
of the individuals who chose to participate in our studies.
Second, our research could not have been accomplished without the coopera
tive efforts of the departments of psychology at both the University of Victoria
and the University of British Columbia. Since the cities of Victoria and
Vancouver, where our respective institutions are located, are separated by
approximately 50 miles of water, travel between them is not as easily ac
complished as it might be in another locale. For this reason, our collaborative
efforts often required long absences from our respective universities. Not only
were these tolerated willingly, but attempts were made in both departments to
schedule departmental and teaching duties in a manner that enabled each of us to
travel between institutions as often as needed. We are grateful for this
consideration. We also acknowledge colleagues in both of these universities who
either helped us in our data gathering efforts or who provided assistance during
the preparation of the manuscript. They are Drs. Louis Costa, Pam Duncan,
Otfried Spreen, and Frank Spellacy from the University of Victoria and Drs.
Ralph Hakstian, Robert Hare, Geraldine Schwartz, James Steiger, and Jerry
Wiggins from the University of British Columbia. We also thank other
colleagues from as far away as Montreal, such as Dr. Yves Michaud, who
assisted in testing and data collection. Our research efforts were a joint project of
our two laboratories, and a number of conscientious research assistants spent
long hours collecting, collating, coding, and analyzing these data on human
x Preface
lateral preferences. The research assistants who worked in the laboratory at the
University of Victoria were Lorna McCrae, Janet Nicholby, Maxine Stoeval,
Carole Behman Summerfcldt, and Wayne Whitbread, while those who worked
in the laboratory at the University of British Columbia were Murray Armstrong,
Miriam Blum, Kathy Cooper, Colin Ensworth, Jeannie Garber, Jean Porac, and
Candice Taylor.
Third, our research has been supported by financial assistance from a number
of granting agencies. They include the National Research Council of Canada,
the Medical Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada, the University of British Columbia, Natural,
Applied and Health Sciences Research Committee, and the University of
Victoria Committee on Faculty Research and Travel. In addition, one of us
(S. C.) was assisted by a grant from the Killam Foundation during the writing of
the manuscript.
Finally, a number of individuals at our respective universities provided the
specific support needed to prepare the manuscript. We were assisted by several
able typists, Doris Chin, Susan Dixon, Elizabeth McCririck, Susan Louie, and
Linda Watson. Both the University of Victoria and the University of British
Columbia granted us sabbatical leave for one year so that we could concentrate
on the completion of the manuscript. In addition, we thank the department of
psychology at the University of British Columbia for providing the facilities
while the two of us worked in one locale. This allowed the manuscript to be
completed more quickly and efficiently than would have been possible in other
circumstances. After six years of traveling between Victoria and Vancouver, we
appreciated and benefited from the opportunity to work together in the same
institution. We give special thanks to Dr. Peter Suedfeld, head of the department
of psychology at the University of British Columbia, for his special efforts in
making this joint residence possible during the completion of the manuscript.
We both feel that this monograph represents a new phase of our continually
evolving collaborative research effort. It emerged from an often argumentative
and volatile relationship that nonetheless was always productive and enjoyable.
We have often noted in our other publications, and will say here again for the
record, that this work truly represents the equal and shared contribution of both
of the authors.
Clare Porac
Stanley Coren
Contents
1. Human Sidedness 1
2. Measurement 12
Proficiency and Preference 13
Hand Preference 18
Foot Preference 21
Eye Preference 23
Ear Preference 27
Quantification of Lateral Preference Behaviors 30
3. Population Characteristics 32
Distributional Characteristics within Indexes of Lateral Preference 35
Distributional Characteristics across Indexes of Lateral Preference 44
4. Physiological, Biological, and Cerebral Asymmetries 50
Physiological Asymmetries 50
Cerebral Asymmetries 52
Biological Asymmetries 60
One-Sidedness 62
5. Genetic Approaches 69
Genetic Explanations for Hand Preference 70
Genetic Explanations for Sidedness Formation 81
Appendix 90
6. Social and Cultural Environment 93
The Right-Sided World Hypothesis 96
Cultural Influences 107
7. Birth Stress 116
xii Contents
8. Special Populations 128
Neurological Injury 129
Psychopathy, Emotional Instability, and Criminality 133
Cognitive Deficits 137
9. Reading 147
10 Cognitive Abilities 157
11. Sensorimotor Coordination 176
Hand-Eye Coordination 176
Sports Performance 181
12. Sensory Preferences 192
Eye Preference 192
Ear Preference 213
13. Reformulation 220
References 233
Author Index 267
Subject Index 277