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Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

ox.ac.uk

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Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#141

Post by nmstoker »

nubinetwork wrote: post #132
skyberrys wrote: post #74

The article didn't really help me understand what it was about bipedalism that resulted in a right handed preference. Also in my family left hand dominates, we are a cluster of left handed people. My theory is if any child wants help with fine motor control the help is provided by a left hand to a left hand.

Oddly enough, a lot of my "nerd friends" are left handed, and I'm also left handed. /shrug

All our maths teachers were at school were left handed, along with 25% of the top maths set in our year. The teacher and student population of left handed people were close to the normal 10% levels too.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#142

Post by _carbyau_ »

emil-lp wrote: post #111
colkassad wrote: post #99

I always faced left when riding a skateboard back in the day, otherwise known in skater parlance as being "goofy-footed". Facing right felt as difficult as writing with my left hand. I always wondered whether that was just the way I first rode a skateboard and it stuck, but if that was the case, I would expect the distribution of which skateboarders face which way to be about even. But goofy-footed riders are in the…

What does "face left" mean? Left foot front? That's regular.

Missing is the assumption that "direction of travel" is forwards.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#143

Post by _carbyau_ »

Magi604 wrote: post #114

I almost never see people using a left hand mouse these days. As younger people start using computers they generally will learn with right-handed mice and will thus develop those fine motor skills in that hand. I wonder if this will make right-handedness even more dominant.

I used right all the time. Got RSI. Now I use left at work all day, and right at home when gaming.

At work, I don't use a left handed mouse. Just those cheaper but common symmetrical ones. And I don't bother changing handedness. I just pick up the mouse and put it to the left of the keyboard.

shrug It works.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#144

Post by dwd »

jgord wrote: post #76
skyberrys wrote: post #74

The article didn't really help me understand what it was about bipedalism that resulted in a right handed preference. Also in my family left hand dominates, we are a cluster of left handed people. My theory is if any child wants help with fine motor control the help is provided by a left hand to a left hand.

without reading .. my immediate guess is that one hand is needed for maintaining upright balance, while the other hand grasps something important ?

As someone who is fairly ambidextrous, but predominately a lefty - the things that are harder to switch between are some of the gross motor skills.

For example, throwing (or kicking) with your non-preferred side is not as simple as picking up and throwing a ball or simply kicking it. You have to adjust your position and stride to lead with the correct foot. I found learning right-handed pace bowling in cricket (for fun) especially challenging as you have to land your back foot in the right place as you bowl through the popping crease. A few steps and rolling the arm over to spin was easy, and I actually can get more spin on the ball with my right hand.

My theory is that the handedness came about through learning basic survival activities such as running and jumping, throwing spears or rocks, etc that require using a preferred or learned hand.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#145

Post by trhway »

js2 wrote: post #93
skyberrys wrote: post #74

The article didn't really help me understand what it was about bipedalism that resulted in a right handed preference. Also in my family left hand dominates, we are a cluster of left handed people. My theory is if any child wants help with fine motor control the help is provided by a left hand to a left hand.

The original paper is titled "Bipedalism and brain expansion explain human handedness". It doesn't seek to explain why we have a right-handed preference specifically (vs left-handed), but rather why humans have such a strong handedness preference compared to ancestors who had only a mild right-handed preference. IOW, why handed vs ambidextrous, not so much why left-handed vs right-handed.

>why handed vs ambidextrous

may be high dexterity is expensive, brain-wise, i.e. may be the choice given average brain is either 2 hands with mild dexterity or a one of high dexterity at the expense of the other. With tools, etc. the latter choice seem to be preferable and was selected for (and the lucky ones get to have 2 of high dexterity) Bipedalism and brain expansion in this situation are indirectly connected to the handedness as they are enablers and drivers of tools use.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#146

Post by Groxx »

>Humans sat conspicuously outside the pattern that explained every other primate, but ... once you account for upright walking and a large brain, humans stop looking like an evolutionary anomaly.

>Using the same models, the team was also able to estimate likely handedness in extinct human ancestors. The picture that emerges is a gradient [from less handedness to more as time goes on]

"we explored the data until we found a statistical anomaly and it implies X" may be interesting[1], but there are TONS of those that are NOT true. is there supporting evidence for this, or is it just "hey this math says maybe"? it sounds more like the latter (as it quite literally seems like they're claiming roughly "big arm + big brain = big handedness", both in this site and in the paper itself), in which case they might also be interested in this study that pirates keep the global temperature down: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/03/23/true-f...

1: from skimming the methodology in the paper, I honestly think this may be a fair characterization. it sounds like they combined data columns until one combo came up as P>0.95 and didn't have counter-evidence and said "that means it's probably true". but also some (all?) of that data may have been generated by models they created based on real ape data (I think?), which just sounds even more sus.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#148

Post by pixl97 »

nmstoker wrote: post #141
nubinetwork wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, a lot of my "nerd friends" are left handed, and I'm also left handed. /shrug

All our maths teachers were at school were left handed, along with 25% of the top maths set in our year. The teacher and student population of left handed people were close to the normal 10% levels too.

Autistic people are 2 to 3 times more likely to be left handed than the general population.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#149

Post by dwd »

Freak_NL wrote: post #10

So why are us southpaws a rarity? The article and the linked research paper both point to bipedalism and bigger brains as the cause, and the paper vaguely seems to hint at selective pressures leading to the right hand getting favoured by the majority of the population, but why? The question from the headline is excellent, if only it was actually answered.

I would think right-handedness is largely reinforced through learning gross motor skills as an infant. If you always use your right, your brain optimises for that.

I wonder whether something simple like being allowed to select and use an object with either hand rather than having it offered to your right hand retains ambidextrous by the time handedness became fixed in the brain around age 4-6.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#150

Post by laserDinosaur »

colkassad wrote: post #99

I always faced left when riding a skateboard back in the day, otherwise known in skater parlance as being "goofy-footed". Facing right felt as difficult as writing with my left hand. I always wondered whether that was just the way I first rode a skateboard and it stuck, but if that was the case, I would expect the distribution of which skateboarders face which way to be about even. But goofy-footed riders are in the…

I'm goofy footed as well - skate boarding with my left foot forward is like trying to throw a ball with my left hand. I also found that if I was rollerblading or ice-skating, turning to my left (counter clockwise) with a foot-over-foot action I can do super easy, but turning turning clockwise I always struggled with.
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