IT'S NOW

09/04/2018

Of course, now it is known that nothing happens by being left-handed. As psychologist Stephen Christman of the University of Toledo (Ohio, United States) explains in the Scientific American website, there is little evidence to suggest that left-handers have any type of physical or psychological handicap. Throughout history, left-handers have accounted for around 10 or 15% of the population in general. The fact that this trait has remained stable after numerous generations points to the fact that left-handedness is not an evolutionary weakness, as many psychologists of the past believed.
However, this characteristic does involve certain psychological and neurological differences. The investigations have not been completed, but there are several proven aspects about the cognitive and psychological profiles of left-handers:
They can think faster
In principle, lefties can use both sides of their brain more easily and efficiently.
According to an Australian study published in 2006 in the journal Neuropsychology, left-handed people often have connections between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, which allows them to process information more quickly. The authors of the study evaluated the performance of the participants with a task that measured the time of transfer between the hemispheres of the brain, and in which they had to use both sides of the brain at the same time.
The research revealed that left-handed participants processed information faster between both sides of the brain, a cognitive advantage that could benefit them in areas such as video games and sports.
Lefties tend to the left (not ideologically)
The hand you use can have a surprising effect on the way you judge abstract ideas, such as courage, intelligence and honesty.
A 2009 study from Stanford University found that left-handed and right-handed people can implicitly favor their dominant side. In the study, the participants observed two columns of illustrations and had to say which ones seemed more cheerful, honest, intelligent and attractive. Left-handers implicitly chose illustrations from the left column, while right-handed tended to choose images from the right side.
"Left-handers implicitly think that the good is on the left and the bad on the right, although consciously, and explicitly, everything in language and culture tells them just the opposite," the psychologist said in a statement. main author of the Daniel Casasanto study.
Lefties have an advantage in some sports
Although less than 15% of the world's population is left-handed, 25% of baseball players in the Major League are left-handed. Why? Perhaps because they usually have a faster reaction time, as was discovered in the Australian study cited above.
However, there is another reason. Several studies have revealed that apparently left-handed people have an advantage in interactive sports, such as boxing, fencing, tennis and baseball. In contrast, this advantage does not extend to non-interactive sports, such as gymnastics and scuba diving. Due to their physical orientation and their different movements, left-handers may be able to disconcert their right-handed opponents, who are used to competing with other right-handed players.
Your brain can organize emotions differently
Your dominant hand can determine how emotions are placed in your brain. A 2012 study published in the journal PLoS ONE found that in left-handers motivation was associated with greater activity in the right hemisphere of the brain, while in right-handed people the opposite was true.
This can have important consequences when it comes to controlling behavioral and anxiety disorders, which are often treated by brain stimulation to increase neural activity in the left hemisphere.
"Taking into account what we show here, this treatment, which helps right-handers, can be to the detriment of left-handers, since it gives them just the opposite of what they need," says one of the study's authors, the psychologist Geoffrey. Brookshire, in a statement.
Lefties can be more creative
Many experts and studies have pointed to a link between lefties and creativity. Is this real? Very likely Research has shown that left-handers are better at diverging thinking (the ability to think of many solutions for a single problem), a cognitive hallmark of creativity. However, it should be noted that the studies show correlation, not causality, so the discoveries are not entirely conclusive.
Another possibility, proposed by the psychologist Chris McManus of University College London in his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand, is that the brain of left-handed people has a much more developed right hemisphere, which is associated with creative thinking.
Exi