Gregory V Jones, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Maryanne Martin, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Published online: January 2006
DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0005961
A notable characteristic of the human species is that a majority of its population tends to favor the use of the right hand rather than the left, while a minority tends to favor the use of the left hand rather than the right. It has been often proposed that this pattern of behavior, although subject to modulation by social and other factors, represents a manifestation of underlying genetic variation.
Keywords: handedness; laterality; asymmetry; left-handed; right-handed
| References | |
| Annett M (1970) A classification of hand preference by association analysis. British Journal of Psychology 61: 303–321. | |
| book Annett M (1985) Left, Right, Hand and Brain: the Right Shift Theory. London, UK: Erlbaum. | |
| Bryden MP, McManus IC and Bulman-Fleming MB (1994) GBG, BMB, R & L, X & Y reply to commentaries. Brain and Cognition 26: 312–326. | |
| Corballis MC (1997) The genetics and evolution of handedness. Psychological Review 104: 714–727. | |
| Cornish KM, Pigram J and Shaw K (1997) Do anomalies of handedness exist in children with fragile-X syndrome? Laterality 2: 91–101. | |
| Day LB and MacNeilage PF (1996) Postural asymmetries and language lateralization in humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology 110: 88–96. | |
| Diamond AC and McGrew WC (1994) True handedness in the cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus)? Primates 35: 69–77. | |
| book Harris LJ (1990) "Cultural influences on handedness: historical and contemporary theory and evidence". In: Coren S (ed.) Left-handedness: Implications and Anomalies, pp. 195–258. Amsterdam, Holland: North-Holland Publishers | |
| Jones GV and Martin M (2000) A note on Corballis (1997) and the genetics and evolution of handedness: developing a unified distributional model from the sex-chromosomes gene hypothesis. Psychological Review 107: 213–218. | |
| Klar AJS (1996) A single locus RGHT specifies preference for hand utilization in humans. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 61: 59–65. | |
| Knecht S, Drager B, Deppe M, et al. (2000) Handedness and hemispheric language dominance in healthy humans. Brain 123: 2512–2518. | |
| Laska M (1996) Manual laterality in spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) solving visually and tactually guided food-reaching tasks. Cortex 32: 717–726. | |
| Laval SH, Dann JC, Butler RJ, et al. (1998) Evidence for linkage to psychosis and cerebral asymmetry (relative hand skill) on the X chromosome. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics) 81: 420–427. | |
| MacNeilage PF, Studdert-Kennedy MG and Lindblom B (1987) Primate handedness reconsidered. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10: 247–263. | |
| McKeever WF (2000) A new family handedness sample with findings consistent with X-linked transmission. British Journal of Psychology 91: 21–39. | |
| McManus IC (1985) Handedness, language dominance and aphasia: a genetic model. Psychological Medicine, Monograph Supplement 8. | |
| book McManus IC (1999) "Handedness, cerebral lateralization and the evolution of language". In: Corballis MC and Lea SEG (eds.) The Descent of Mind: Psychological Perspectives on Hominid Evolution, pp. 194–217. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press | |
| book McManus IC and Bryden MP (1992) "The genetics of handedness, cerebral dominance and lateralization". In: Rapin I and Segalowitz SJ (eds.) Handbook of Neuropsychology, 6, pp. 115–144. Amsterdam, Holland: Elsevier | |
| Oldfield RC (1971) The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh Inventory. Neuropsychologia 9: 97–114. | |
| Provins KA (1997) Handedness and speech: a critical reappraisal of the role of genetic and environmental factors in the cerebral lateralization of function. Psychological Review 104: 554–571. | |
| Further Reading | |
| book Annett M (2002) Handedness and Brain Asymmetry: The Right Shift Theory. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. | |
| book Bock GR and Marsh J (eds.) (1991) Biological Asymmetry and Handedness. Ciba Foundation Symposium 162 Chichester, UK: Wiley. | |
| book Bradshaw JL and Rogers LJ (1993) The Evolution of Lateral Asymmetries, Language, Tool Use, and Intellect San Diego, CA: Academic Press. | |
| book Corballis M (2002) From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. | |
| McGrew WC and Marchant LF (1997) On the other hand: current issues in and meta-analysis of the behavioral laterality of hand function in nonhuman primates. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 40: 201–232. | |
| book McManus IC and Bryden MP (1993) "The neurobiology of handedness, language, and cerebral dominance: a model for the molecular genetics of behavior". Johnson MH (ed.) Brain Development and Cognition, pp. 679–702. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Scientific | |
| book McManus C (2002) Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodues, Atoms and Cultures. London, UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. | |
| book Springer SP and Deutsch G (1997) Left Brain, Right Brain: Perspective from Cognitive Neuroscience. 5th edn. New York, NY: Freeman. | |
| Van Agtmael T, Forrest SM and Williamson R (2002) Parametric and non-parametric linkage analysis of several candidate regions for genes for human handedness. European Journal of Human Genetics 10: 623–630. | |
Copyright © 2000-2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., or related companies. All rights reserved.
