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

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

#181

Post by Tor3 »

kelipso wrote: post #156
Vachyas wrote: post #151

An interesting anecdote that comes to mind is playing old computer games with arrow keys, which used my right hand. I got pretty proficient with this. Over the years, I (and I imagine many others) switched over to WASD to play newer games with mouse + keyboard, but this meant using the left hand for "arrow keys" Now I can directly compare how proficient I am with WASD vs Arrow Keys and the result surprised me. I was…

Something super simple and revealing is try pressing on the brakes with your left foot.

That's because after you've learned to drive, everything the feet do is muscle memory. You don't consciously adjust the pressure (you just believe you do..), so switching around the pedals will need re-learning. And indeed it's common among rally cross drivers to learn to use the left foot with the brake pedal as well.

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

#182

Post by imp0cat »

m463 wrote: post #130
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 overused my right hand with computers - mouse + many keyboard keys like arrows, enter, backspace, etc so I switched to a left-handed mouse. I cursed for about a week, then sometimes fumbled, and then it just worked. Now years later, if I use a right-handed mouse to do say a first-person-shooter, I overcorrect like I'm drunk on wildly pitching ship. left-hand is dialed in and precise. I think some of this stuff is l…

    I overused my right hand with computers...
In your teens, right? Happens to a lot of people. :)

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

#183

Post by Tor3 »

p00dles wrote: post #140
didibus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why handed vs ambidextrous Did it even explain that? I'm ambidextrous, I have no handedness bias, so whichever I pick up to first learn something is the hand I use. So I'm a mix of left-handed and right-handed depending on the task. And yet I didn't really understand why that's odd because of my bipedalism?

There is also a category of people who are “mixed-handed”, who have a strong handedness preference for a given task, but which hand one prefers varies based on the task. I didn’t know about this category until recently, but it describes my personal experience. Mildly informative Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance

I'm like that, except for those things I can do both ways, because it's useful and sometimes necessary - like using a shovel. There are a bunch of things I only do with either the left hand only, or the right hand only. A right-handed friend always throw balls with his left hand. Most other things he does with his right hand.

I'm right-handed. I'm definitely sure of that. It's just that what hand I use depends on which hand I start with from the beginning. And that'll be the preferred hand, except for things where it's natural to switch from the very beginning.

But there are also some things I've learned to do with both hands much later, e.g. washing dishes - there was a reason for having to do that for a while, and now I just switch when I like it, or if the kitchen happens to be arranged in a way which makes one side more preferable.

(BTW, when building carpenters still used common hammers it was completely normal to use either hand, as access space may be limited and there's basically no choice sometimes.)

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

#184

Post by abernard1 »

scythe wrote: post #16
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.

Here's my five minute lunchtime hypothesis: it's because the heart is on the left. As human behavior demanded increasing precision from the hands, being a little farther from the heartbeat was a slight advantage.

There is also a bias for how babies are held [1]. It holds even with left-handers. Holding a baby's head near the mother's heart helps the baby get to sleep. Which means the baby doesn't cry (and attract predators) and also gives the parents more time to sleep at night.

It also allows right-handed mothers to do something with their dominant hand while cradling the baby in that position.

[1]: https://sites.psu.edu/clarep/2024/04/12/the-left-cradling-bi...

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

#185

Post by Tor3 »

Kaijo wrote: post #162
kazinator wrote: post #157

Here is a funny thing. I can walk a bicycle perfectly just by holding nothing but the saddle with my right hand. I can pick some spot on the ground ahead, call it, and hit it with the front wheel accurately. Switch to my left hand and the bike's front wheel starts having a mind of its own. "No, don't veer that way, Bike; you're not reading my mind, like you do through my right hand!!!"

To drain pasta or noodles quickly, I put it in a colander, hold it above my kitchen sink, and swirl it around in quick circles. I realized about a month ago my circles are always counterclockwise, and very efficient, but that I can't keep a clockwise spin going for more than a few cycles before messing up. Since then I keep trying to spin my pasta clockwise (such are the small excitements and adventures of my wfh lif…

You're right-handed, right? It is more natural to move your hand in counter-clockwise circles than the opposite. People who have never swirled pasta or anything like that will feel the same if you ask them to make swirling motions with their hands. Inwards is easier - clockwise with your left hand, counterclockwise with your right hand.

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

#186

Post by Tor3 »

gpm wrote: post #19
scythe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my five minute lunchtime hypothesis: it's because the heart is on the left. As human behavior demanded increasing precision from the hands, being a little farther from the heartbeat was a slight advantage.

If this was the case wouldn't it be easier to measure the pulse in peoples left wrists? Which doesn't seem to be a thing?

But it is a thing. That's how it was always explained in school, among other places, when I was a kid.

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

#187

Post by yzydserd »

rym_ wrote: post #173
Danox wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Left-handed individuals living in a predominantly right-handed world possess the capacity to adapt and utilize their right hand effectively. While most right-handed individuals do not exhibit this ability unless they experience an extraordinary event, such as an injury to their right hand, left-handed individuals are compelled to learn how to use their right hand in a right-handed world. As a left-handed individual w…

In fencing at least left handed fighters tend to get a bit further because there are so few of them they are a lot harder to play against. On a training night a left handed fencer might match up with 10 right handers while a right handed might only see one left hander!

It’s similar in other sports. Around 30% of top cricketers are left handed. It’s 40% for some leading countries.

The “hypothesis presumes that athletes in interactive sports are much more likely to play and practice against right-handed opponents. As a result, these athletes develop both greater familiarity and highly specific skills to anticipate the action outcomes of their right-handed opponents via attunement to crucial perceptual information”

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7424046/

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

#188

Post by Tor3 »

mannyv wrote: post #78
Stevvo wrote: post #62

I taught English in China 20 years ago. Of the thousands of students I taught, none wrote with their left hand. "There are no left-handed in China" might sound as ridiculous as "There are no gays in Uganda". However of those thousands of students, none had messy hand writing. In any class in Europe or the US, around 10% of students have messy writing. Suspiciously equivalent to the supposed number of left-handed stud…

In many parts of Asia they will 'correct' children who are using their left hands.

As the sister comment said - this was common in the past a lot of places. Maybe everywhere. My left-handed father was forced to learn to write with his right hand.

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

#189

Post by Vachyas »

wincy wrote: post #165
xenadu02 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember in elementary school being amused by the idea of handedness so I decided to practice writing with my left hand as well. I'm not great at it but even to this day I can write legibly with my left hand from that little bit of practice as a child. Anyone can get much better at using their non-dominant hand (if they have one) with just a bit of practice. The effect is much much stronger when you do so as a chil…

I realized at some point as a leftie I could trivially learn to write a mirror image of what everyone else was writing so learned to write backwards. Since the motions are exactly what others do it’s actually easier in a lot of ways for me. Left handed writing is all scrunched up and annoying, and I got constant smudges on my hand. Frixion ink pens are the only pen I’ll buy because they don’t smudge at all. My guess…

I also discovered the mirrored writing thing lol and it made me wonder what ambidexterity is since if ambidextrous people could presumably write non-mirrored with the other hand, aren't those completely different motions that neither hand has had any practice with?

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

#190

Post by [deleted] »

Danox wrote: post #171
Vachyas wrote: post #151

An interesting anecdote that comes to mind is playing old computer games with arrow keys, which used my right hand. I got pretty proficient with this. Over the years, I (and I imagine many others) switched over to WASD to play newer games with mouse + keyboard, but this meant using the left hand for "arrow keys" Now I can directly compare how proficient I am with WASD vs Arrow Keys and the result surprised me. I was…

Left-handed individuals living in a predominantly right-handed world possess the capacity to adapt and utilize their right hand effectively. While most right-handed individuals do not exhibit this ability unless they experience an extraordinary event, such as an injury to their right hand, left-handed individuals are compelled to learn how to use their right hand in a right-handed world. As a left-handed individual w…

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