Study Shows Left-Handers Have More Flexible Brains

http://www.rense.com ^ | 3-6-02 | Robert Lee Hotz

[Age of Reason]

Very funny.

But I wouldn't have dreamed of it.

The teachers I had in those days were magnificent.

Come to think of it, so were we students.

[Age of Reason]

The teachers I had in those days were magnificent.

Err, with one exception.

[Looking for Diogenes]

bill clinton is left handed.

As are George H.W. Bush and H. Ross Perot. There was comment in the 1992 election that all the candidates were left-handed.

[upcountry miss]

My children are prone to tell me, "no, your other left" when I follow or give directions wrong. One day, while giving a tourist directions at the beach, I told him to turn left at the end of the road and he replied, "right into the ocean?" I always have to look at my wrist for my watch to distinguish between right and left.

Every skill that other people have taught me, I copy them and do it righthanded (knitting, crochetting, bowling, batting a ball) but all things I have picked up on my own, (eating, writing) I do lefthanded. No wonder we lefties are confused!! Sometimes, I even have to stop and think which hand I want to use, and I have been "practicing" for seventy years.

[RightOnline]

"Now I've heard that handedness is opposite earedness (what ear you put the phone to). If that's true, then all of us lefties should be right-eared. I am, how 'bout you?"

Nope. EXTREMELY "left-eared". I spend a lot of time every day on a phone, and to hold one up to my right ear feels incredibly awkward and uncomfortable.

[upcountry miss]

I, too, am left-eared and left-eyed. I find it very difficult to write anything while talking on the phone as I have to hold the phone to my right ear in order to free my left hand for writing. I also write upside-down and find writing on a blackboard next to impossible. Also, flip-charts. In my day, fountain pens were used and I continuously blotted my work as my hand glided over everything I had written previously. Was a straight A student, but to my consternation, I never did get an A in penmanship.

[Glenn]

Of course we do. We intend to use that flexibility to gain us everything from a PAC to handicapped parking spaces. We are a small but powerful minority!

[Lady Jag]

It doesn't work for everyone. Some of those whose dominant hand doesn't end on top when they cross their arms turn out to be people who were switched as kids and for others it just doesn't work. But it is amazing how often it does.

[Lady Jag]

You can choose which hand to use because you have that fabulous flexible brain. Playing baseball I used to have to wait till I got to the plate to figure out which way I was going to bat.

[Young Werther]

This sounds like a sinister story to me.

[Lady Jag]

Right! Righties cannot use my lefty mouse with their left hands so they go into weird contortions trying to use their right hands with the wrong buttons and it's tremdously frustrating. Yet though clumsy, I can use a righthand mouse but only as long as I use my right hand. Flexible brain.

[JenB]

Here's a right/left mouse irony: my father is left handed, and when I was a kid he would always insist that we leave the mouse on the left for his use. So, I'm a right-handed person who uses the mouse with my left hand. In fact I am fairly ambidextrous, except that my handwriting is slightly less illegible when I use my right hand - it's pretty bad either way. Oddly, my left hand is larger, stronger, and for most fine motor tasks, the better hand.

[RightWhale]

Remember the study that showed the left ear hears personally and the right hears in a businesslike way? When at home getting a call from family, use the left ear, the sympathetic, understanding ear. When at the office use the right ear, the no-nonsense, state your business ear. This has little to do with handedness.

[Timesink]

I am a left handed female. I produced two left handed children: both female. I can assure you none are retarded!

It's amazing how everywhere else in the world, people have always noticed the supposed correlation between left-handedness and increased intelligence, yet here on FR they're all claiming the exact opposite.

I can only hypothesize that they're all either ignorant or jealous. Or both.

[grammymoon]

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[RightWhale]

you have that fabulous flexible brain

More than flexible. Some days if it weren't in its jar it would spread out like a puddle.

[stands2reason]

Re: Giving directions

I've been known to flat-out lie and say,"I'm new to the area," when asked to give directions. Nothing makes me happier than to be asked directions in a place that I am really new to so it isn't a lie.

[PurVirgo]

*LOL* about eating out, I know exactly what you mean. It's pretty uncomfortable for both parties involved!!

I don't really notice my being left handed as a handicap until I try to either mimic somebody's motions, or am presented with something like a top-bound binder. Those are really aggravating. And I can't write on a chalkboard very legibly.

You can always tell a lefty from a righty by looking at their hands - we always have ink or pencil smudges from going over our writing. Unless of course, I'm being creative and writing either backwards or with the paper nearly upside down.

Oh, I have a question - is the dominant hand supposed to be bigger than the other? I heard that somewhere, but my left hand is actually a bit smaller than my right.

[andysandmikesmom]

About the dominant hand being larger....I dont know if that is true or not, because I am just like you...altho I am predominately left handed, my right hand and my right hand fingers are bigger....my right handed fingers are actually a 1/2 size bigger than my left handed fingers...

Someone else also mentionned about learning how to knit or crochet...I remember once, my girlfriend was going to teach me how to knit...but she was right handed, and trying to do it the way she showed me was very awkward...so she tried to reverse it, to show me how to knit left handed...well, she ended up frustrated as she could not do it, so she finally threw her hands up and told me to go to a store which had knitting classes to learn....well, needless to say, I never did to, and never learned how to knit...

And I also remember when in grade school, we used ink pens that we had to fill from the ink bottles...and when a leftie writes with one of those pens, the ink is still fairly wet, and our leftie hands smear right over what we just wrote...I could never get a great mark in neatness in penmanship because of that...those teachers also did not seem to realize that our sloppiness was not of our own doing...

I must go with the notion, that we lefties, are highly intelligent, highly artistic, and just great folk...LOL...

[lafroste]

Cross your arms over your chest. Know what I mean? Like you were cold or whatever. Generally one hand will lie on the opposite bicep and the other will tuck under. Most of the time, your dominant hand will be the one that's up.

I tried it, your theory did not work with me. I am a leftie, but my left hand was tucked. Like a lot of other lefties, I have a fundamental confusion about such things as which side of the plate to stand on when playing baseball, which way to swing a golf club, etc. I can write with either hand. I throw a ball with my left hand, a frisbee with my right. I shoot a rifle left handed, a bow right handed. I am "mouse-idextrous" and use a computer mouse with equal comfort in either hand. Wierd...