Most theories about the inheritance of hand preference assume that handedness is a unidimensional trait which forms a continuous distribution. This paper demonstrates that sampling a wide range of manual activities reveals dimensions of hand preference that are independent. 180 right handed and 110 left handed adults indicated their hand preference for 55 activities according to a five point scale. A Varimax Factor Analysis revealed four factors which accounted for 80 percent of the variance. Factor 3 was of special interest because it represented behaviors which rely upon the axial musculature and involve strength more than dexterity. Hand preference for items on this factor were less laterally biased than on factors which included such fine motor behaviors as writing or drawing. These results suggest that manual preference is governed by more than one neural system and that these systems may be independently lateralized.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

Reducing the destructive impact of alcohol: the search for acceptable strategies continues.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Alcoholic Intoxication↗

PubMed1986

Independent dimensions of hand preference: reliability of the factor structure and the handedness inventory.

Healey, Liederman, and Geschwind (1986) suggested that handedness is not a unidimensional trait. They devised a questionnaire with 55 handedness items and 6 familial hand preference items and administered it to 290 adults. Their analysis identified four independent factors underlying hand preference. In the current study, the reliability of all but one of the items on the original inventory was established by retesting 83 of the original subjects. An additional analysis revealed that approximately 2% of the population could be considered to have "ambiguous" handedness in the sense that they indicated unstable hand preference according to the criteria suggested by Soper and Satz (1984). The reliability of the factor structure was evaluated by factor analyzing data from a new sample of 487 subjects, demographically similar to those in the original sample. All four factors reappeared with minor shifts in item loadings. The original and second samples were then combined, and four factors were again found, even when the sample was reconstructed so that there were equal numbers of males and females. On the basis of these new analyses our initial conclusion was confirmed: hand preference must be characterized along more than one dimension.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1986