handedness throughout the lifespan: cross-sectional view on sex differences as asymmetries change

Clicks: 289
ID: 203972
2015
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Steady

Ranked #261 of 1,131 articles by views in accounts of chemical research

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 1,131 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Manual asymmetries has been studied by many researchers, however contradictory findings still exist as to whether preferred manual asymmetries increases with age or do we become more ambidextrous. Recently it was shown that perhaps there is a third option, that there is no increase or decrease in laterality but rather preferred manual asymmetries remains consistent throughout adulthood. Another related finding is that females appear to have an advantage in some handedness tasks, such as the Grooved Pegboard. When a larger pegboard is used, sex differences may reverse as males may perform better when larger pegs and a larger trajectory are required. However, it is not fully understood if these sex differences arise from an early age and continue throughout life. Therefore we sought to explore sex differences in preferred hand dominance throughout the lifespan. In order to explore preferred hand dominance during the lifespan we examined 76 children (19 4 to 5 year olds, 12 female, M age = 4.73; 34 6 to 8 year olds, 12 female, M age = 6.97; 23 9 to 12 year olds, 14 female, M age = 10.83) in Experiment 1 and 35 healthy young right-handed adults (15 female, M age = 20.91) and 37 healthy older right-handed adults (20 female, M age = 72.3) in Experiment 2. Individuals were tested using a standard size (small) and modified Grooved Pegboard (larger pegboard). Our study demonstrates that hand asymmetries are present early in life (children 4 to 5 years old) at that these differences attenuate as a function of age until adulthood (Experiment 1). Furthermore, our results demonstrate that as we age (Experiment 2), asymmetries may increase (small and large pegboards), decrease (Annett), or stay the same (finger tapping). As well we demonstrated that the sex differences could not be entirely accounted for by hand size. Therefore, asymmetries as regard to the aging process, seems to be task specific which may account for the conflicting findings in research.
Reference Key
esivagnanasunderam2015frontiershandedness Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors ;Mukundhan eSivagnanasunderam;David A Gonzalez;Pamela J Bryden;Gordon eYoung;Amanda eForsyth;Eric A Roy
Journal accounts of chemical research
Year 2015
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01556
URL
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01556/full
Keywords
sex differences lifespan manual asymmetries pegboardpsychology

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.