Abstract
The present study examined the relationship between left–right discrimination (LRD) performance and handedness, sex and cognitive abilities. In total, 31 men and 35 women – with a balanced ratio of left-and right-handers – completed the Bergen Left–Right Discrimination Test. We found an advantage of left-handers in both identifying left hands and in verifying “left” propositions. A sex effect was also found, as women had an overall higher error rate than men, and increasing difficulty impacted their reaction time more than it did for men. Moreover, sex interacted with handedness and manual preference strength. A negative correlation of LRD reaction time with visuo-spatial and verbal long-term memory was found independently of sex, providing new insights into the relationship between cognitive skills and performance on LRD.
Highlights
The ability to discriminate left from right, called left–right discrimination (LRD), is essential in everyday life
The main aim of the present study was to investigate the variability in behavioral performance differences in LRD using the Bergen Left–Right Discrimination Test (BLRDT)
We aimed to determine whether handedness was a significant factor of variability in LRD performance by analyzing the performance of a sample with a more balanced ratio (41%) of left-handers than that used in other studies (
Summary
The ability to discriminate left from right, called left–right discrimination (LRD), is essential in everyday life. Many people report difficulties discriminating left from right in daily life (Hannay et al, 1990), resulting in what we call Left–Right Confusion. The lack of difficulty in up–down discrimination may be due to the strong up–down asymmetry of our world, induced by gravity (Vingerhoets and Sarrechia, 2009). This spatial confusion phenomenon seems specific to left–right discrimination. Egocentric LRD is the ability to discriminate left from right from one’s own perspective with typical orientations. The present work used the Bergen Left–Right Discrimination Test (BLRDT, Ofte and Hugdahl, 2002a,b), which focuses on allocentric LRD
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