I’ve Noticed

Way… way back when the True Colors conference was still at Central Connecticut State University (Back when it was still called  a college) I was tasked with collecting signature for a petition on the proposed non-discrimination bill.

I noticed something, it was so obvious that it stood out! Wow! Many, so many that I could see there was something going on. Amazing! What it was, was that many of the people signing the petition were left handed! I thought Na, this cant be right. But then the next person grabbed the pen in their left hand… well just a coincident. Then the next grabbed with the left hand.

Okay the engineer in me said this is worth looking in to. (More on this later.)

Left-Handedness and Cognition: New Insights
A new study on left-handedness and cognition yields surprising insights.
Psychology Today
By Sebastian Ocklenburg, Ph.D.
November 3, 2024


Key points

• A new study investigated handedness and emotion lateralization.
• People with moderate handedness showed better task performance.
• People with a reversed asymmetry profile showed more social difficulties and self-diagnosed autism and ADHD.

You see the last one? That is true with me, the more that I look back and the more that I know about ADHD the more I see it growing up. When I was in social work grad school one of my professors was a LCSW who specialized in learning disorders and along come me.

So he is handing out the results of the mid-term exam and when he got to me he said “See me after class.” Holy Sh*t! What did I fu*k up now?

So I go to his office after class and he said, “Have ever been tested for dyslexia?” Hun?… Um… “No” Would you like to be screen for it now? He saw it in the pattern of my writing. (Hence all the grammar errors… those pesky little letters keep jumping around. Or I left out a word thinking it wrote it.)

Oh, did I mention that I’m left-handed?

Does left-handedness affect abilities like creativity or intelligence?

Most people are right-handed, but about 10.6% are left-handed (Papadatou-Pastou and co-workers, 2020). While some older studies suggested that left-handedness may be linked to artistic abilities or intelligence, most recent studies do not show such associations. Handedness, however, is not the only form of left-right asymmetry that people show. One idea that has been suggested is that it is not handedness per se that is linked to cognitive abilities, but how these asymmetries are distributed in the brain. To investigate this, the connection of handedness to cognitive abilities needs to be investigated taking other asymmetries into account.

[…]

New insights into handedness, emotional lateralization, and cognitive performance
So, what did the scientists find out?

As was to be expected, most people were right-handed. Also, most people found faces with an emotional left half more expressive than those with an emotional right half. This bias for the left half of the face concerning emotion recognition is well recorded in the scientific literature.

The scientists then analyzed how handedness was linked to success in the pegboard task and found that people with moderate handedness were most successful, independent of whether they were left-handed or right-handed. Task success was also linked to language fluency, showing that there may be a cascading effect between handedness, task success, and cognitive ability.

The scientists then further tested whether the laterality profile of an individual volunteer had any effects. Overall, 53% of volunteers showed the standard profile (right-handed and left-dominant for visual emotion recognition). 12% of volunteers showed a reversed profile. 13% showed a left bias for both tests and 22% of volunteers had a right bias for both tests. Interestingly a reversed profile was linked to both more self-reported social difficulties and a higher self-reported rate of autism and ADHD. The scientists argued that people with the reversed profile do not align with the average of other people for both handedness and emotional lateralization, which may it make more difficult for them to properly time their reaction to social cues and may thus lead to social difficulties.

That may all explain my face blindness.

Left-handedness in homosexual men and women: neuroendocrine implications
PubMed
By C M McCormick, S F Witelson, E Kingstone


Abstract

Although numerous researchers have hypothesized a biological factor in the etiology of homosexuality, there is a lack of empirical evidence. Previous investigations did not focus on behavioral functions of the brain. Using neuropsychological testing, we found an increased incidence of left-hand preference (defined as non-consistent right-hand preference) in a group of 32 homosexual women. A trend in the same direction was found in a group of 38 homosexual men. These results suggest that homosexual orientation has a neurobiological component possibly related to hemispheric functional asymmetry. The results are consistent with previous reports that (1) prenatal neuroendocrine events are a factor in the development of human sexual orientation and functional brain asymmetries, and (2) the mechanisms associated with homosexual orientation and related neuropsychological characteristics are different between the sexes, i.e. elevated levels of prenatal sex hormones in women and decreased levels in men.

In another PubMed article,

A crossover interaction between sex, sexual orientation, and handedness
By A M Pattatucci  1 , C Patterson, J Benjamin, D H Hamer



Abstract

The distribution of handedness scores was analysed in 1414 heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual men and women. Hand preference was assessed by a questionnaire that distinguishes consistently right-handed from partially or completely left-handed individuals, and sexual orientation was measured by the Kinsey scales. As expected from population-based studies, heterosexual men were, on average, more left-handed than heterosexual women. By contrast, gay men were more right-handed than lesbians or heterosexual men, and lesbians were more left-handed than gay men or heterosexual women. This crossover interaction suggests that a common variable influences sex, sexual orientation, and hand preference.

Another quirk in the statistics gay men tend to have an older brother, there has been less research in seeing if lesbians have older sisters.

The human brain is so amazing, we are all unique and so many factors go into making us who we are.