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Biomedical subjects

J Annett

Publications and source records attributed to J Annett.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

Handedness for eating in gorillas.

Observations of spontaneous reaching for food in 31 captive lowland gorillas found a full range of hand preferences between strong left and strong right, with most animals showing intermediate levels of preference. There was a high degree of consistency between observations made on different occasions for the same animal, showing that degrees of relative preference tend to be stable in individuals. The findings agree with the majority of previous studies of apes and other primates in showing no species bias to one side, with about half the animals left and half right preferent.

Animals

Individual differences in right and left reaction time.

Experiments designed to check the absence of effects for hands and handedness in simple and two-choice reaction time found unexpected individual differences related to stimulus laterality. The majority of subjects responded faster to the stimulus on the left and a substantial minority responded faster to the stimulus on the right in any choice pair. The right index finger was slower than the left index or the middle fingers. Choices tended to be faster between fingers on different hands than on the same hand and same-hand choices were faster with the left hand than the right hand. There were no effects attributable to hand preference or sex.

Choice Behavior