Writing with the left VS right hand

Factual Questions
1

I’m right handed and I decided to learn to write with my left hand, and as I get better I seem to notice that my left handed handwriting looks more and more like my right handed handwriting…

So, my question is, for perfectly hanbidex people, do they have perfectly matching writing with both hands? Could a hand writing expert look at both handwritings and say that its from the same person?

Furthermore, could one practice two completely different styles, one with each hand and write different styles with different hands? Would he then be able to reproduce the right handed style with the left hand and vice versa?

Also, I seem to write more imaginative stuff with my left hand? does that have anything to do with the right side of the brain or is it just that I write slower and so, have more time to think of what to write?

2

I don’t think the hand you write with decides which part of the brain you use. But I do think the dominant hand is an indication of what type of brain you have There is an unusually high number of left-handed people in highly technical careers (I am left-handed and a have a degree in software Engineering) Suggesting that their right-hemisphere is the dominant one. (left-hemisphere being dominant in right-handers)

I think the answers to most of your questions would be yes.

3

I could be wrong though. It could be that if you are writing with your left hand you are making your right-hemisphere more active than it might otherwise be. And that extra activity might result in more creativeness. In other words - I don’t know. so I’ll shut up and stop guessing.

4

IIRC, the rule of thumb is that the pen points to the side of the brain that processes language. Most Righties’s pens point to the left, as do most Lefties’s pens (because the hand hooks around from the top). So most people you see are in fact “left brained” in that their language processing center is in the left hemisphere (I forgot what it’s called). That’s recalling way back from psych 101, though.

5

I can write with both hands simultaneously. The right hand writes normally, and the left writes in mirror image. Actually, anyone can do it. Try it.

6

wouldn’t it be because it is easier to write with the pen facing the left (since we write from left to right?)
-and as a matter of fact, when I write with my left hand, the pen points to the right (and its annoying because it scratches the paper more than when handling it the other way)

Also, isn’t there a thing about true and false left handed people i.e. those that write with a cooked hand (pen pointing to the left) are false left handed people. (I’m not sure what they mean by true and false though - So I should do as Lobsang and shut up and stop guessing)

And another thing, how does all that translate to typing (as most of us type with both hands at the same time)

7

cite?

Disclaimer: everything i say below is based on my very rudimentary knowledge of brain physiology.

question 1
IANAhandwriting expert, but i don’t know if it is possible for a person to have exactly identical script from both hands. generally speaking, information needed to specify the shape of symbols comes from the left brain (even for most left handed people). if one writes with the left hand, this information is transferred via the corpus callosum (a bundle of nerves that connect the two halves of the brain) to the right brain motor cortex.

there have been some fascinating studies about people whose CCs have had to be cut for medical reasons. many patients who’re holding a book in their left hand find themselves putting it down even if they’re absorbed in it simply because the right brain (which controls their left hand) can’t really read and is bored!
there was another patient who tried to beat his wife with one hand and protect her with the other!

these examples seem to indicate basic processing distinctions. so unless your language skills are exactly distributed between the two hemispheres and both show equal processing activation, i would find it highly unlikely that both hands would write an exactly identical script.

aside: women seem to communicate better than men because (i) their language skills are more distributed among the two hemispheres than for males, and (ii) their corpus callosums develop faster and are bigger.

question 2
again, i doubt if one could produce the right hand script with the left and vice versa. learning anything leaves some sort of a trace on the brain by altering neuronal structure (some connections strengthen, some weaken, etc). as such, the trace from the right brain ought not match the trace on the left brain if two different styles have been practiced.

question 3
whoa…toughie!

this is purely conjecture, but yes, could be because of right brain activity, could be because of decreased speed in writing. think of it this way…when you say a word, it sets of certain associations in your mind…a sort of activation spreads out from that word to related concepts, both consciously and subconsciously. if you give it more time (by writing slower), or more thought (by concentrating more because you’re using an unfamiliar hand to write), then more related concepts will be activated. voila! your left hand seems more creative.

as for the ‘pen point direction indicates language processing hemisphere’ thingy, it sounds like an urban legend to me. of course, i’m perfectly willing to eat my words if someone will give me a valid cite.

8

another thing.

while some lucky people can get away with ambidextrosity is that even a word?! not having any processing costs, most people who force themselves to change handedness will suffer cognitively. this is probably because one is born with a certain dominant orientation and developing it further enhances processing. however, forcing the non-dominant hemisphere to take charge will increase its basic capacity, but except in very rare cases, it will never reach the ability-level of the predisposed dominant hemisphere. so you’ll end up overusing the non-dominant side and under-using the natually dominant side.

this is one of the major reasons why many left handed kids who’re forced to write right-handed seem to be slow or suffering from learning disorders. sometimes nature just won’t bend to man’s will, ya know?

as for the question on typing, well, lateralization has been inversely correlated with typing reaction times. ergo, the more one-sided your processing is, the slower you’ll type. lots of practice, of course, can reduce or negate this effect. (see what i said about brain traces in my last post.)
Could someone with actual knowledge of brain physiology please correct/substantiate all my bs?

9

Waw aasna! very clear and good answers…

now I’d like to know, is the thing about getting dumber if I force the usage of my other hand completly out of your ass or do you actually have good reason to believe it is so?

And how rudimentary is your knowledge on brain physiology? I mean, is that only from vague recolections on high-school brain-surgery class?

Anyhow, thanks a lot; because at first I though I’d get smarter by forcing my left hand and becoming hanbidex…but I think I’ll research this thing a bit more before I get too dumb…

10

OH WOW that’s so cool! Not that I have any use for it, yet, neat! :smiley:

11

[ol]
[li]thank you! but don’t just take my word for it…better do some research yourself.[/li][li]WHOA! hang on a minute! i didnt say you’ll get dumber! what i meant was, if you force exclusive use of your non-dominant side, you won’t perform as well as you’d have the potential to if you used your dominant side. if writing with both hands is your party trick, knock yourself out![/li][li]i never had “brain surgery” in high school. i never did biology for my A-levels, and, quite honestly, am not really a fan of the subject. i’m a psychology undergrad and am trying to apply things i learn in my different subjects to answer your question. that’s why the disclaimer: i might be putting 2 and 2 together to get 5![/li][/ol]

12

Are you left-handed?

Regardless, left-brain dominant means "In most adults, the left controls language behavior. About 90% of the population is left brain dominant. Remaining 10% are right brain dominant or mixed brain dominant (different hemispheres serve predominantly for different activities).

Dominant Hemisphere (Usually left) Functions [ul][li]Processing and storage of individual sounds of language is a function of the dominant hemisphere. []Formulation and production of speech sounds is controlled by the dominant hemisphere. [/ul][/li]Nondominant Hemisphere Functions [ul][li]Processing of speech melody patterns (intonation) appears to be a function of the nondominant hemisphere. []Production of nonspeech sounds is controlled by this hemisphere. [/ul][/li]From here: www.d.umn.edu/~mmizuko/2230/cns.htm

No luck googling for that rule of thumb.

13

DrLiver – how long did it take you to learn to write legibly with your left hand? I had a serious right-wrist injury 6 mos. ago. Haven’t been writing consistently with my left, tho it hurts to write much with my right, because my left-hand writing looks like I gave the pen to my dog!

Did you practice a lot or just start doing it?

14

summerbreeze I actually started writing with my left hand while I was bored in class, its legible but not very pretty, but now that I think of it, my right hand handwriting isn’t very pretty either…anyway; its not that difficult if you put your mind to it, its been a month and I’ve been doing this pretty irregulary -put together maybe two hours a week.

js_africanus No, I’m right handed, usually, but recently I decided to become good with my both hands.

I tried the ‘simultaneusly writing with both hands’ and I found that I can do two things:

  1. Write something with my right and and the mirror image with my left hand as Q.E.D. suggested.

  2. I can write the same thing with both hands, at the same time (its easyer if I place one hand higher than the other so to write on two lines at the same time).

But as much as I tried, I can’t write two different things individually with each hand
(the closest I came was writing doing part of a letter with a hand, stopping, doing part of the other letter with the other hand, and so on…but in the end both words looked very bad and I kept putting wrong letters in wrong words).

So, I’m wondering: Would it become possible, with lots of practice, to write simultaneusly different things? or is that one of those things that the brain can’t do?

Also, it seems a lot harder to write ‘like in a mirror’ with my left hand if I’m not doing it the other way with my right hand, is there a reason for this?

And finally; how about left handed people, would they write the mirror image with their right hand? Wouldn’t that be weird because their hands come close together instead of separating from one another?

Has any serious study been done on this?

(and aasna: pshychology undegrad is pretty damn good authority… a lot better than fuzzy memories of high school psychology class…)

15

DrLiver, I got a check I wanted (desperately) to cash while my right hand was useless. I had to go into the bank, find a teller who knows me & sign with an X! It was humiliating! Everyone thought I’m illiterate! I try writing with my left when I’m just watching tv or something, & it still looks incredibly stupid.

You must be some kind of genius or something.

My ex is a lefty, all our kids are righties, but our daughter is a true ambidextrous. She can write her name with her right hand and my name with her left at the same time – don’t know about anything more significant.

16

Really? I’m a leftie, but- as I recently learned that the reason why I didn’t understand what people meant bylefties “hooking” their hand is because I don’t - my pen/pencil points decidedly to the right; people have told me that my writing is passable because I " write like right-handed people do." I guess it’s more or less mirror image. That would indicate I’m “right-brained” then?

17

I’m primarily a lefty, but when I broke my left wrist I had to write right-handed for a while. It felt weird, but wasn’t much messier than my normal handwriting. Then again, I’m generally pretty ambidextrous. I do gross motor activities, like sports, better with the right hand (except guitar, which I learned to play right-handed just because it was too much of a pain to mirror-image all the chords), and fine-motor activities better with the left. If needed, though, I can usually switch and the results aren’t too different. (I suck at most sports no matter which hand I’m using.)

Then again, maybe the above explains why most people think I’m a little odd.

18

Yep, according to my psych. 100 prof. and my (occasionally faulty) memory we can assume that you process and store individual sounds of language, and formulate and produce speech sounds in your right hemisphere. I don’t know if that means that your Broca’s Area is on your right hand side, but I would assume that it does. Caveats:[ul]
[li]This is based on my memory which may be sketchy;[/li][li]I majored in psych. and was going to go into neural psych. and took a number of graduate classes and not once did I hear that right-brained meant “more creative” vs. left-brained meant “more logical” or whatever; however,[/li][li]The cite I linked to above affirms my recollection, whereas this site contradicts my recollection and says that left-brain/right-brain is which hemisphere you use mostly, i.e. creative vs. analytical.[/ul][/li]So I must say: caveat emptor. Still can’t find a cite for the pencil pointing thingie. I really wish I could…

19

the right hemisphere? :confused: i thought language was left hemisphere. and broca’s area is definitely left hemisphere (with a few exceptions).

i really don’t know about the validity of this test, but i got it off a university link. it is to help figure out which side is dominant for you. i’m left brain, apparently.

DrLiver, about simultaneously writing different things with the two hands, well, i think it should be possible with practice. humans have the capacity to multi-task admirably and to divide their attention (listening to the game scores on the radio while typing a report and drinking coffee). performance quality will probably suffer, but with enough practice, i should think it can be done.
basically, your wernicke’s area in the brain (left hem.) converts thought to words. this needs to be transported to the appropriate motor cortexes which then do the needful. i should imagine there’ll be interference at first, but after enough concentration, it probably can be streamlined to some extent.

but of course, i repeat: i THINK.

20

elfkin477 writes left-handed with the pen pointing to the right, which is unusual. So by the rule of thumb, we conclude – hesitantly, what with my memory and all – that elf is right-brained as opposed to the usual left-brained. The broca’s area bit was just a guess on my part. Sorry about not being more clear on that.

We still have yet to verify that rule of thumb.