Saturday, July 12, 2008

Handedness - If your Brain is Right, What's Left?

Please note that I am writing today based solely on the empirical studies and evidence conducted by very creative psychologists. However, aside from a few facts, these ideas lie totally in the realm of my mind only. We have so many stigmas attached to left-hand dominated persons of our human race. Today, I will try to dispel this as a general conscencus. Being predominantly right-handed, I try to be as objective as possible on this topic. Some hand-related comments include leftovers and you've been left out. On the other there is the right way, "right"eousness, "right"ing your ship, and many more that I will leave to your imagination. To me, these sayings are comical in nature when considering the source - people who lived before me.
First off, our world is a right-handed world. Nearly 90% of all living humans are right-handed. We obviously have to attribute this phenomenon to the brain. Most of the tools and machinery we have come to use and consider important are geared towards right-hand use. Fuck that. Let's take a peek at what research has shown us to be true.
There is very little difference in the strength or dexterity between your dominant hand and the other. Studies have shown that the agility of your dominant hand is an overt expression of superior motor control on the opposite side of the brain, respectively. If you are left-handed, the right side of the brain literally has more area devoted to the control of this hand and side of the body in general. Now it is not always true that if you are left-handed, the right hempishpere (of the brain) dominates. Because of language development, a left-handed person's dominant hempishere could just as easily be the on the same side - left. Approximately, 97% of all right-handers process speech in the left side of the brain and are left brain dominant (Coren, 2002). Ironically, about 70% of left-handers, produce their speech in the same way (Coren, 2002). A small percentage of each group uses the right hempishere for language and speech communication. Some, but very few, utilize both sides for speech. Keep in mind that you cannot reach these conclusions by simple tests. Experimenters have performed serious medical tests by slightly anesthetizing one half of the brain at a time to study the other. I neither condone or recommend these types of experiments to be done at your own will. But if you happen to work in some form of neurosurgery, I can't stop you from being productive with your talents.
There have been studies to show that in most animal groups, there is a 50-50 ratio of left to right-hand preference. If you remember what I said about language earlier than this may make sense to you. We have come so far in developing our linguistic skills that the prevalence of right-handedness in humans most probably reflects the left-brain's specialization for language (Cohen, 2002). Animals have nowhere near the linguistic capacity of humans. Even in fetal ultrasounds, we have been able to determine the handedness of an infant pre-conception. (Kessler, 2005). This leads me to believe that forcing infants to use the opposite hand to perform most tasks creates a possibility of speech and/or reading problems because the dominant hand has been predetermined. However, you should masturbate with your left hand because you will utilize the intrinsic creativity of your right brain so much more (Daniel J., 2008). Or not...
The most obvious advantage of being left-handed reveals itself in times of brain injury. Left-handers typically experience far less language loss and recover from either hemisphere's injury much faster and more completely. I have no factually-based idea as to why this is true, but if you study more closely the differences between left and right-brain dominated people, you will have a better understanding as I believe I do. I really don't feel like describing my opinion on this specific idea because I have to leave now to hypothetically ejaculate from heavy lifting and high repetition on my legs and upper back.
Dan's Final Thought/Advice: In my opinion, since the right hempishpere is far superior at imagery and visual abilities, many famous artists and painters must have been left-handed. Coincidentally, I did some research and found that Michelangelo, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci and M.C. Escher were left-handers. Most talented musicians are ambidextrious as far as I know. I imagine Malmsteen, Vai, Satriani, Petrucci, Impellitteri, Gilbert, Vaughan and even B.B. King had some considerable power with both halves of the brain. Adio.