Do the French and the English differ for hand skill asymmetry? Handedness subgroups in the sample of Doyen and Carlier (2002) and in English schools and universities.
Doyen and Carlier (2002) reported peg-moving performance in a sample of French adults classified in the hand preference subgroups of Annett (1970, 1985). The findings were said to differ from those for English samples. This paper describes new analyses of English data, drawn from schools and universities. Comparison of the school and university samples showed that relationships between hand skill asymmetry and subgroup handedness were reliable, but also revealed a new finding. Asymmetries were stronger in the school than university samples at all levels of hand preference. The French findings resembled those for the English university sample for all measures and for all subgroups except right-handed writers with strong left tendencies. The performance of the latter in the French sample was like that of left-handers rather than right-handers. An explanation might be that some members of this group were left-handers who had been forced to use the right hand for writing.
Annett
Marian
M
School of Psychology, University of Leicester, UK. doc@le.ac.uk