Quirks: All Hands on Deck

Lefties and righties process language differently.

Left-hemisphere dominance for language approaches 95 percent prevalence among right-handers, but drops to 70 percent in left-handers. Research on the implications shows mixed results; one study suggests that aphasias in lefties may be less severe.

Lefties and righties think about numbers differently.

Although there doesn’t seem to be a strong correlation between handedness and general math ability, left-handed schoolchildren perform slightly better on arithmetic problems. And when people are asked to name a quantity—the number of cups in their house, for example—lefties are more likely than righties to think in round numbers like 100.

Strong handedness is associated with mental agility.

Who’s better, righties or lefties? Turns out neither hand spells out higher achievement across the board. But a strong preference for your dominant hand—whichever one that might be—is associated with a small increase in cognitive ability.

We get more ambidextrous as we age.

You may be a righty now—but not forever. While young right-handers are indeed more skilled with their right hand, with age, they actually perform just as well with either. The reason for the growing parity, unfortunately, appears to be decreasing dexterity in the dominant hand among older adults.

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