Are lefties considered more intelligent than righties? Science did the numbers.
BY ELIZABETH MILLARD
Your dominant hand may be more influential than you think. Spoiler: There’s a chance lefties may rule us all.
While only between 10 to 13.5 percent of the U.S. population are left-handed—according to one estimate—prior
studies have shown that left-handed people are over-represented among
musicians, creative types, and chess players. Now, a new study published
in Frontiers in Psychology piles on more evidence that lefties might be smarter than right-handed folk.
In
the research, left-handers outperformed others in math when those tasks
involved difficult problem solving, such as associating mathematical
functions to a given set of data. But when the task wasn’t so
demanding—for example, doing simple arithmetic—there was no difference
between lefties and righties.
Despite
the recent study, there’s still controversy in the scientific field
regarding intelligence and dominant hand usage. For instance, one study concluded that left-handed kids slightly under-performed compared to righties in developmental measures.
But
there may be certain advantages with drawing on the right side of the
brain with more efficiency (That’s the case with left-handers, since the
right side of the brain controls the left side of the body. Righties
rely more on their left side of their brain, which controls the right
side of their body.)
For
example, the brain’s right side is associated with creativity,
intuition, insight, and music awareness. That may be why that evidence
exists that so many musicians, artists, and intuitive thinkers are
lefties.
Although
math is a left-brain function, theoretically giving righties the
advantage, the recent study highlighted creative problem solving and
spatial reasoning, which are right-brain attributes. So while simple
math might be a righty’s domain, the more complicated, thinky stuff
might be more the boon of a lefty, the study suggests.
While
the jury is still out on the full picture on handedness and
intelligence, righties don’t need to concede to lefties just yet. In
fact, whatever link may exist, it might not necessarily be a done deal.
In
fact, it might be better for righties to “join” lefties, the
researchers in the recent study suggest. In their findings, they note
that some left-handers have better connections between the two brain
hemispheres, which brings superior information processing and,
basically, the best of both sides of the brain.
They
write, “This opens up the possibility that we could all achieve
enhanced connectivity by training ourselves to use both hands.” So get
ready for some pretty scratchy handwriting in the meantime.
Source: MensHealth
