Is There a Sex Difference in Human Laterality? III. An Exhaustive Survey of Tactile Laterality Studies from Six Neuropsychology Journals

Abstract

The contents of six neuropsychology journals (161 volumes, 612 issues) were screened to identify tactile laterality experiments. Of 73 experiments identified, 40% provided information about sex differences. Seventeen experiments yielded a total of 18 sex differences, of which 4 could be interpreted in terms of the hypothesis that functional cerebral lateralization is more pronounced in males. All 4 interpretable outcomes (constituting 5.5% of the population of experiments and 13.8% of the informative experiments) were found to be consistent with the differential lateralization hypothesis. The results, in isolation, do not justify rejecting the null hypothesis. However, when considered in conjunction with findings for auditory and visual laterality studies, the present results are compatible with a weak population-level sex difference.