Right and left-handedness in humans
Why do humans, virtually alone among
all animal species, display a distinct
left or right-handedness? Not even
our closest relatives among the apes
possess such decided lateral
asymmetry, as psychologists call it 11 . Yet
about 90 per cent of every human
population that has ever lived
appears to have been right-handed.
Professor Bryan Turner at Deakin
University has studied the research
literature on left-handedness and found
that handedness goes with sidedness. So
nine out of ten people are right-handed
and eight are right-footed. He noted that
this distinctive asymmetry in the
human population is itself systematic 7 .
“Humans think in categories: black and
white, up and down, left and right. It”s
a system of signs that enables us to
categorise phenomena that are
essentially ambiguous.’
Research has shown that there is a
genetic or inherited element to
handedness. But while left-handedness
tends to run in families, neither left
nor right handers will automatically
produce off-spring with the same
handedness; in fact about 6 per cent of
children with two right-handed parents
will be left-handed 10 . However, among
two left-handed parents, perhaps 40 per
cent of the children will also be left-
handed 9 . With one right and one left-
handed parent, 15 to 20 per cent of the
offspring will be lefthanded 8 . Even
among identical twins who have exactly
the same genes, one in six pairs will
differ in their handedness.
What then makes people left-handed if
it is not simply genetic? Other factors
must be at work and researchers have
turned to the brain for clues. In the
1860s the French surgeon and
anthropologist, Dr Paul Broca, made the
remarkable finding that patients who
had lost their powers of speech 5 as a
result of a stroke (a blood clot in the
brain) had paralysis of the right half of
their body. He noted that since the left
hemisphere of the brain controls the
right half of the body, and vice versa,
the brain damage must have been in
the brain’s left hemisphere.
Psychologists now believe that among
right-handed people, probably 95 per
cent have their language centre in the
left hemisphere, while 5 per cent have
rightsided language. Left-handers,
however, do not show the reverse
pattern but instead a majority also have
their language in the left hemisphere.
Some 30 per cent have right hemisphere
language.
Dr Brinkman, a brain researcher at
the Australian National University in
Canberra, has suggested that evolution
of speech went with right-handed
preference 1 According to Brinkman, as
the brain evolved, one side became
specialised for fine control of
movement (necessary for producing
speech)
and along with this evolution came
righthand preference. According to
Brinkman, most left-handers have left
hemisphere dominance but also some
capacity in the right hemisphere. She
has observed that if a left-handed
person is brain-damaged in the left
hemisphere, the recovery of speech is
quite often better and this is explained
by the fact that left-handers have a
more bilateral speech function 4 .
In her studies of macaque monkeys,
Brinkman has noticed that primates
(monkeys) seem to learn a hand
preference from their mother in the first
year of life but this could be one hand
or the other. In humans, however, the
specialisation in (unction of the two
hemispheres results in anatomical
differences: areas that are involved
with the production of speech are
usually larger on the left side than on
the right. Since monkeys have not
acquired the art of speech, one would
not expect to see such a variation but
Brinkman claims to have discovered a
trend in monkeys towards the
asymmetry that is evident in the
human brain.
Two American researchers, Geschwind
and Galaburda, studied the brains of
human embryos and discovered that the
left-right asymmetry exists before
birth 6 . But as the brain develops, a
number of things can affect it. Every
brain is initially female in its
organisation and it only becomes a
male brain when the male foetus begins
to secrete hormones. Geschwind and
Galaburda knew that different parts of
the brain mature at different rates; the
right hemisphere develops first, then
the left. Moreover, a girl’s brain
develops somewhat faster than that of a
boy. So, if something happens to the
brain’s development during pregnancy,
it is more likely to be affected in a male
and the hemisphere more likely to be
involved is the left 3 The brain may
become less lateralised and this in turn
could result in left-handedness and the
development of certain superior skills
that have their origins in the left
hemisphere such as logic, rationality
and abstraction. It should be no surprise
then that among mathematicians and
architects, left-handers tend to be more
common and there are more left-
handed males than females.
The results of this research may be some
consolation to left-handers who have
for centuries lived in a world designed
to suit right-handed people. However,
what is alarming, according to Mr.
Charles Moore, a writer and journalist,
is the way the word “right” reinforces
its own virtue. Subliminally he says,
language tells people to think that
anything on the right can be trusted
while anything on the left is
dangerous or even sinister 2 We speak of
lefthanded compliments and
according to Moore, “it is no
coincidence that lefthanded children,
forced to use their right hand, often
develop a stammer as they are robbed of
their freedom of speech” 12. However, as
more research is undertaken on the
causes of left-handedness, attitudes
towards left-handed people are
gradually changing for the better.
Indeed when the champion tennis
player Ivan Lendl was asked what
the single thing was that he would
choose in order to improve his game, he
said he would like to become a
lefthander.
