A seminal study conducted more than 30 years ago suggested that left-handedness has to do something with mathematical precociousness. It said that the rate of left-handedness among students talented in mathematics was much greater than among the general population.
But this was challenged with more studies that followed years after, claiming that being a lefty could even have detrimental effects on general cognitive function as well as academic achievement.
One study identified left-handed children to be slightly under-performing in a series of developmental measures.
Another report said that southpaws appear to be slightly over-represented among people with intellectual disabilities. It was also discovered that in a sample of children aged 5 to 14, left-handers performed more poorly in mathematical ability.
Stock photo by Shutterstock
Two professors from the University of Liverpool would like to refute all these studies, saying that the inconsistency is due to the discrepancies in the experimental design.
Giovanni Sala, a PhD candidate specializing in cognitive psychology, and Fernand Gobet, a professor of decision making and expertise, said that some of these past studies only asked people what their hand preference was in general and the way measured mathematical ability only ranged from simple arithmetic to complex problem solving.
Now the duo conducted a new study involving more than 2,300 students in primary school and high school. And this time, it involved a series of experiments which varied in terms of type and difficulty of mathematical tasks.
But first the researchers had to assure comparability in the handedness of the sample population. They used the same questionnaire, the Edinburgh Inventory, to ask people which hand they prefer for writing, drawing, throwing, and brushing, among others.
Instead of categorically classifying the students as lefties and righties, Sala and Gobet used a scale in the hand preferences, whether they are extreme or moderate in their left- and right-handedness.
Through this, the two said that they could build more reliable and powerful statistical models.
It was discovered that left-handers “outperformed the rest of the sample when the tasks involved difficult problem-solving, such as associating mathematical functions to a given set of data.”
Worth noting about the results of this experiment is the fact that this pattern was clear in male adolescents.
Also, extreme right-handers, or those who prefer using their right hand for all items on the test, showed their under-performance in all the experiments compared to moderate right-handers and left-handers, the two said.
“Left-handers seem to have, on average, an edge when solving demanding mathematical tasks – at least during primary school and high school. Also, being strongly right-handed may represent a disadvantage for mathematics,” the researchers concluded.
Source: The Conversation
