Issued also as thesis, Columbia University. / Bibliography: p. 75-80.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1964. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: l. 57-59.

This study sought to discover the relationship of torque to the academic performance and other variables of children from five to eight years old. Torque was defined as the production of clockwise circles during a writing task. The phenomenon was first reported by Theodore Blau (1977) who proposed that children who torqued past a certain age were predisposed to problems both academic and behavioural. To measure the torquing propensities of children, Blau developed a Torque Test which had children produce six circles around X's (⊗), three with the preferred hand and three with the non-preferred hand. The present study used the preferred writing hand only and two torque tests, the Circling Directionality Test developed by the researcher using an embedded task to detect torquing and a modified form of Blau's Torque Test. Variables of academic achievement, age, sex, point of circle commencement, laterality, neuromuscular motor, control , test comparisons, and circling directionality were analysed. The population for the study consisted of 300 regular classroom children ages five to eight. Seventy-five children per grade were randomly selected by age from grade levels K-3. Significant relationships between torquing and low academic achievement were only found for the eight year old group who also had a higher incidence of left-handedness and crossed hand/foot laterality. Significantly more boys torqued than girls. As well, those who torqued in most instances commenced their circles at the bottom. Predictably significant relationships were found for hand and foot, but only left-handedness was significantly related to torque. No significant relationships could be found for measures of eyedness. Both tests used to measure torque were equally effective. The rapidity of circle construction did not alter the pattern of torquing in the children. There was a significant relationship between age and torquing with over 50% of the five year olds torquing with the preferred hand; by age eight this incidence had been reduced to 8% of the population. Torquing was then seen as a developmental trait found in a large percentage of five and six year olds but by age eight it was indicative of academic school difficulties. Recommendations for further study of the torquing phenomenon were made. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

No description available.

No / The right hemisphere has often been viewed as having a dominant role in the processing of emotional information. Other evidence indicates that both hemispheres process emotional information but their involvement is valence specific, with the right hemisphere dealing with negative emotions and the left hemisphere preferentially processing positive emotions. This has been found under both restricted (Reuter-Lorenz & Davidson, 1981) and free viewing conditions (Jansari, Tranel, & Adolphs, 2000). It remains unclear whether the valence-specific laterality effect is also sex specific or is influenced by the handedness of participants. To explore this issue we repeated Jansari et al.'s free-viewing laterality task with 78 participants. We found a valence-specific laterality effect in women but not men, with women discriminating negative emotional expressions more accurately when the face was presented on the left-hand side and discriminating positive emotions more accurately when those faces were presented on the right-hand side. These results indicate that under free viewing conditions women are more lateralised for the processing of facial emotion than are men. Handedness did not affect the lateralised processing of facial emotion. Finally, participants demonstrated a response bias on control trials, where facial emotion did not differ between the faces. Participants selected the left-hand side more frequently when they believed the expression was negative and the right-hand side more frequently when they believed the expression was positive. This response bias can cause a spurious valence-specific laterality effect which might have contributed to the conflicting findings within the literature.

Yes / Although facial symmetry correlates with facial attractiveness, human faces are often far from symmetrical with one side frequently being larger than the other (Kowner, 1998). Smith (2000) reported that male and female faces were asymmetrical in opposite directions, with males having a larger area on the left side compared to the right side, and females having a larger right side compared to the left side. The present study attempted to replicate and extend this finding. Two databases of facial images from Stirling and St Andrews Universities, consisting of 180 and 122 faces respectively, and a third set of 62 faces collected at Abertay University, were used to examine Smith¿s findings. Smith¿s unique method of calculating the size of each hemiface was applied to each set. For the Stirling and St Andrew¿s sets a computer program did this automatically and for the Abertay set it was done manually. No significant overall effect of gender on facial area asymmetry was found. However, the St. Andrews sample demonstrated a similar effect to Smith, with females having a significantly larger mean area of right hemiface and males having a larger left hemiface. In addition, for the Abertay faces handedness had a significant effect on facial asymmetry with right handers having a larger left side of the face. These findings give limited support for Smith¿s results but do also suggest that finding such an asymmetry may depend upon some as yet unidentified factors inherent in some methods of image collection.

Humans display a 90% population level bias towards right-handedness, implying the vast majority of people have a left-hemisphere dominant for motor control. Although handedness presents a weak, but very consistent heritability across the literature (estimated to be approximately 25%), to date few genetic loci associated with this complex trait have been identified and replicated in subsequent studies. One such gene which has been found to be associated with handedness and subsequently replicated is PCSK6, most recently through a quantitative GWAS (P < 0.5*10−8, Brandler et al. (2013)). Interestingly, PCSK6 is known to activate Nodal, a morphogen involved in a highly conserved bilaterian pathway known to regulate left-right body axis determination. Here I present the first molecular characterisation of a handedness-associated region by conducting a detailed functional analysis of the PCSK6 locus, combining genetic analysis, in silico prediction and molecular assays to investigate how common genetic variants influence handedness-related phenotypes. Specifically, I defined the associated locus to be 12.7 kb in size, spanning a predicted 1.8 kb bidirectional promoter which controls the expression of both an antisense long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), and a novel short PCSK6 isoform. A series of luciferase-expressing constructs were generated to characterise the promoter, identifying a minimal sequence capable of driving transcription in a sense strand direction. I have demonstrated experimentally that one of the top associated markers in previous GWA studies, rs11855145, directly creates/disrupts a suspected transcription factor bind site in the vicinity of this bidirectional promoter. Further functional studies of the genetic variation within PCSK6 may help explain the molecular regulatory mechanisms affecting gene expression. This project provides a model for assays to study other GWAS-nominated candidate genes, and in particular for establishing the role of noncoding variants. The findings from this study support the role of common variants in influencing complex phenotypes, such as handedness.

Thesis (BEd)-- Stellenbosch University, 1944 / Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Educational Psychology. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Activities such as throwing are, as a rule, carried out only with the better arm. Mostly this one-sided execution is due to mere convenience. If attempts are made to justify it, in the main two arguments are advanced: In the first place, it is taken for granted that the inferior arm cannot make appreciable progress anyway, and it is therefore considered as not worthwhile exercising it. In the second place, it is believed that, if the inferior arm should improve by such a practice, this happens at the expense of efficiency in general, and may have detrimental consequences in some regards or other. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: geen opsomming

The present study addresses some of the problems in human handedness studies by noting the manual choices of one hundred twenty elementary pupils in the first through fifth grades. It discusses the value of the Van Riper critical angle board, the correlation indices of handedness based upon different types of activities, and the divergence with respect to degree and pattern of hand preference in the children.

Left-handedness is an invisible handicap in today's classrooms. The education systsem in the United States makes special considerations and accommodations for special needs of students, yet left-handed individuals do not receive much consideration in a mainstream classroom. Experts say that up to twenty percent of children in Canada and the United States are left-handed. This project discusses how these left-handed children have to work in a right-handed world. The focus of this study was to provide right-handed teachers with teaching techniques, positive suggestions, and common sense approaches to accomodate the left-handed pupil.