Abstract
We live in a right-hander’s world. Although left-handers become accustomed to using right-handed devices, an underlying preference for objects that afford the dominant hand could remain. We employed eye tracking while left- and right-handed participants viewed advertisements for everyday products. Participants then rated aesthetic appeal, purchase intention, and perceived value. Left-handed participants found advertisements for products that more easily afforded them action to be more aesthetically appealing. They also indicated greater future purchase intention for products that were oriented towards the left hand, and gave these products a higher perceived value. Eye tracking data showed that object handles attracted attention, and were also able to retain participants’ attention. Further, across multiple eye movement measures, our data show that participant eye movements were altered by the orientation of the handle, such that this side of the image was examined earlier and for longer, regardless of handedness. Left-handers’ preferences might be stronger because they are more aware of object orientation, whereas right-handers do not experience the same difficulties. These findings highlight intrinsic differences in the way in which we perceive objects and our underlying judgments about those products, based on handedness.
Highlights
Our handedness influences how we attend to, process, and interact with items in the physical world
We examined whether handedness and object affordance interact to influence time to first fixation upon, total fixation duration, and the ordering of fixations within the left and right visual fields
Participants who showed stronger hand preferences showed stronger preference scores on the ratings scales for advertisements where the handle was oriented toward the dominant hand (aesthetics: r(267) = .189, p = .002, purchase intention: r(267) = .209, p = .001, perceived value: r(267) = .231, p < .001)
Summary
Our handedness influences how we attend to, process, and interact with items in the physical world. Given that approximately 90% of the population is right-handed [1,2,3,4], we live in a world primarily designed by, and created for, right-handers [5]. Left-handers need to adapt to this right-handed environment. Left-handers’ experience of the physical world must be quite different to that of right-handers. As everyday products, such as scissors, are specialised for use by either the left- or the right-hand, a market targeting left-handers exists. As popularised by The Simpsons [6], “leftorium” shops exist in the UK, the USA, Australia, and, online
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