Interesting. They may have nothing to do with each other, but then again they might. I think these kinds of questions are fascinating - you guys are making me seriously consider about going back for my Ph.D in motor behavior.
Wow.
In that case, we really are fighting ignorance here. Even in this bastard kid forum. Every sperm, er, forum is sacred.
;j
I drive a stick, and I always steer with my left hand if I use only one. I’ve driven a stick for so long, I probably will steer with my left hand the rest of my life.
You drive a stick?
I drive a car.
d’oh! :smack:
never mind
That test doesn’t do much for me either. It shows me at 33.33 percent left-handed although I do most fine work with my left hand. I can write with my right hand, but my writing looks like a third-grader’s. My non-scientific wiggle test shows that I’m definitely left-handed. The wiggle test is: wiggle all the fingers on your hands. On which hand do your fingers move faster? That’s your dominant hand. In neurologic testing one of the tests for dominance (or brain damage) is to do a finger tap test, which is basically the same thing as my wiggle test except they make it all empirical and stuff by using an outside observer, a tap counter, and a stopwatch.
I’ve got mixed dominance all over the place. When my dad was teaching me how to shoot, when I was about 5 or 6, I naturally used my left hand but I couldn’t close my right eye. I found out much later that I’m right-eyed. I eventually switched to right-handed shooting because it was a pain in the ass to shoot left-handed. I wrote using both hands in kindergarten but eventually settled down on the left hand for most delicate tasks. But I hated left-handed scissors; couldn’t use the things. I brush my teeth and write exclusively with my left hand, everything else is pretty mixed, though I use chopsticks with my right hand. I probably learned it right-handed when I was a kid and it stuck that way. I throw like a girl with my left hand, but I’m more accurate.
I did a lot of sports and activities that balance dominance: gymnastics, springboard diving, martial arts, juggling. I started fencing with my right hand but switched to the left for fun. Disconcerts your opponent like you wouldn’t believe when you do it during a practice bout. I had to get a straight-hilted foil so I could do this. Because Japanese sword work is taught all right-handed, I use my right hand for that. Whenever they get a natural lefty, most people involved with kendo or iaido will spout the usual crap line, “Well, your power should come from your back hand, which is your left in this case, so you should actually have an advantage.” I’ve heard this many, many times. I’d love to respond, just once, “Yeah, right, that’s why all you righties switch your dominant hand to the back position to get the same advantage.” I punch equally hard and well with either hand and I don’t really have a preference for throws. I used to kick right-footed for soccer because I like to plant my left leg, but I’ve trained myself out of this habit for martial arts.
Something that people find weird is that I’ll use whichever hand is closer to grab or catch something, but I’ll toss it over to the other side if I want to use it with the other hand. For example, the kitchen knife might be over on the left, the cutting board on the right, so I’ll grab the knife with my right hand, pop it in a flat throw to my right hand, and start cutting.
I don’t really understand people who are so dominant on one side that they can’t use the other. One of my friends is an actuary, the only female actuary I’ve ever met, and she’s so right-dominant that if you put her in a sleeping bag where the zipper is on the right side, and therefore inaccessible to her right hand, she’d be effectively trapped. Maybe her extreme dominance is linked with her math ability. If I remember right, mathematical processing is a mostly left-brain activity.
That’s so…what’s that word? Funny? No, that’s not it…
I was one of those who switched from hand to hand in K-1st grade and was nudged, but not really forced, into just using my right hand. I still use my left occasionally but I’m really out of practice (and I want to get back into it, so in case I have a stroke on my right side I will be able to legibly sign my disability checks).
I am still confused about right and left. It helps if somebody points.
If a car behind me is signaling and I see the turn signal in my rearview mirror I have to really think about which way it’s actually going to turn (not that it’s any of my business).
Many years ago, while driving on the “wrong” side of the road for a couple of days in a foreign country, I got completely confused and signed my hotel bill with my left hand, and didn’t realize I had done it until I noticed that might signature was sort of odd looking–pretty much the same signature, but shakier.
I can play ping-pong with either hand, although somewhat better with my right. I like to beat my husband with my left hand (at ping-pong, I mean!) and then laugh about it. I can bat equally well on either side, too, but in this case, unlike ping-pong, we are not talking about masterful, or even competent. I am actually better at throwing the ball with my left hand.
Also, I apparently do not have a dominant eye. Before monovision, when my prescription was exactly the same for both eyes, I never worried about which contact lens went into which side of the case. Now I have one full-strength and one reduced-strength contact lens and I still don’t worry about which eye either one goes into. It just doesn’t matter. Once the lenses are in, I can’t tell. (I love monovision.)
Are you armwrestling with lefties? Because I know my little sister is more ambidextrous than I am, and when we armwrestle left-handed, she beats me incredibly easily, because her left arm does more than mine does. Right-handed arm wrestling, I beat her just as easily as she beats me with her left arm. So maybe the armwrestling is not so much that you’re better, but that most everyone else is worse with their left arms. if you’re arm wrestling with lefties, though, nevermind.