Posted on 08/13/2015 10:32:43 AM PDT by CharlesOConnell
Diana Deutsch is a perceptual researcher who made discoveries about left-handedness and pitch perception.
Her more important discovery is that people who grow up speaking tonal languages like Mandarin have a greater advantage in the pitch component of musicality.
About left-handedness, her findings:
40% of the 10% of the population who are left handed, have a brain neurology that is just an opposite mirror of the 90% of right handers.
60% of left-handers, the people who have a higher proportion of perfect pitch, have “mixed hand preference”, in which they will switch off between hands for common tasks (switch hitters).
(My father broke his left hand, learned to write right handed, and never switched back once the arm was healed.)
Mixed-hand preference lefties have an over-active corpus callosum, the interface between brain hemispheres, the structure that is deliberately damaged in lobotomy.
They have greater communication between sides, perhaps an improper freedom of movement of impulses.
They have higher rates of perfect pitch, artistic temperament, and insanity.
So why does left-handedness survive?
Well, it seemed that one area where left-handed people excelled was combat. A left-handed soldier winning a sword fight got to reproduce his left-handed genes.
Broke a finger in 5th grade, had to try to write left-handed while it healed. Caught myself numerous times trying to write backwards, just mirror image, don’t know what was up with that, it was odd. In adulthood, there are a few tasks that work better for me with my left hand, but my right hand predominates.
My youngest son, who grew up to be a nuclear engineer, was prevented from advancing from kindergarten to 1st grade by an ill advised teacher.
He was part of a class of 12 boys who were considered bad bets for being able to learn how to read. When I asked the teacher why, she said that he'd "failed a test". "What test?" One she had devised herself, it turned out.
The little boys were asked to "cut a circle" out of construction paper free had. I asked what kind of scissors he had -- whether they were left handed scissors. "No" was her answer. I pointed out that he was left handed.
Upon further investigation, I found that 11 of the 12 boys chosen for this all-boy class were lefties. I took him out of that school the next day and sent him to Catholic school where the nuns had him reading before Christmas.
It’s strange. I know of some lefties that have no issues at all using scissors but I have always had issues with them. It’s as if the angle is wrong when I am trying to cut. I fold and tear most papers, and when it comes to gift wrapping, nothing beats a bag and some tissue paper :)
I am a lefty. I am also odd.
I tried to interest my baby in the concept when she started holding a fork. It looked like it could go either way for a while.
Ultimately I just let her develop organically, but it appeared that the back and forth between the two hands really did influence her synaptic development.
For the better.
Alas, I am still the only lefty in the house. The green-handled scissors are all mine!
All I know is that, for EVERY project she could work on at home during her elementary and high school years, I did all of the cutting. She just could not do it, and it wasn’t a matter of “learning”.
Another weird thing... when she was 5, she had a birthday party with 8 total children, mostly about the same age. 5 of the 8 were left-handed, so it seemed like she was more likely to be friends with other lefties.
Not unusual for me. For me I do most sports as a right handed person would. I could switch hit. Even with soccer I would kick using my right leg. Maybe it has something to do with watching sports as a kid.
I do have perfect pitch. For singers this is a blessing. As a trumpet player in a band it can cause issues. I used to amuse the other band nerds that I could play all of our music perfectly just using my mouth piece.
LOL. I see the “higher rates of insanity” has also already kicked in.
To make my move on the couch I had to be on the right of my date. I can’t go right...
Ha! I knew there were others out there! Thanks.
Well...
...yeah.
I don't know about an "evolutionary disadvantage", but I do know we lefties are disadvantaged playing the infield in baseball. Try throwing out a runner at first base from second, third or shortstop. The throwing pivot is all wrong. You don't see any left-handed catchers either. Since the majority of batters are going to be right-handed, if you're attempting to throw to second base to prevent a steal you're more likely to throw the ball into the batter's ear than get it to second in time for the tag.
Don't even get me started on learning to write in grade school!
Then there were the desks with the writing surface only on the right side....hated them.
As for sports, my post above about batting left-handed has some objective truth to it. Left-handed batters tend to do much better with pitches low in the strike zone and less well with pitches high in the strike zone compared with right-handed batters. The three home runs I hit in Babe Ruth ball were about two inches outside the strike zone below the knees. But that was my power stroke.
Unfortunately, I played enough baseball that when I tried to take up golf, I swung a golf club like a baseball swing. That meant at the top of the golf ball’s trajectory, it would make an sharp 90 degree slice to the left. I could never get it out of my swing. So I don’t golf.
Oh yeah...music. Sure.
Sometimes forgers will try to use the opposite hand in making forged documents. However, the brain impulses for handwriting are the same, and a good forensic documents examiner will not be fooled; they can make an identification regardless of the hand used.
I had to pay twice as much for my left handed coffee cup.
I’m a lefty..one of those “mixed hand preference”, in which they will switch off between hands for common tasks (switch hitters).
at school I wrote with both hands, and played softball holding the bat both directions..I kicked football with my right foot and have never had a problem with a right handed mouse etc..
I grew up learning to do things right handed where I could..My mother never told me I was “different” so I never thougt I was..
I was the only left handed in a right handed family but that didn’t stop my mother from teaching her “disabled” daughter the same things the siblings were able to do..
I learned to sew on Mom’s 1939 treadle Singer just like my sisters and made all my own clothes from early high school on..
My mother taught me to knit by turning her knitting needles around and knitting backwards so I did knit differently ..but I do knit, something left handers don’t normally do..
My only failure was in penmanship..I had nobody to show me how to hold a pencil/pen and my handwriting has always been shoddy at best..My mother had a beautiful hand and my sisters were good too..
although they endeavored to get my left hand to produce even graceful letters, they didn’t succeed...My right hand never felt comfortable in writing but the results were not that much worse than my more natural feeling left..I taught myself to write right handed although it did feel weird..
I click both lots of fingers and wink with both eyes..and I’m just as comfortable holding a tea cup in either hand (pinkies up)...
and I’m creative etc and musical and all te other wonderful attributes of the fortunate left hander..
Insanity ??? that’s just a dirty lie from jealous righties
:)
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