Handedness as a function of test complexity
| Autor: | Steingrueber Hj |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1975 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Population Poison control Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Scale (descriptive set theory) 050105 experimental psychology Square (algebra) Functional Laterality 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Statistics Task Performance and Analysis Humans 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences education Child Pencil (mathematics) education.field_of_study 05 social sciences 030229 sport sciences Function (mathematics) Achievement Sensory Systems Test (assessment) Line (geometry) Female Psychology |
| Zdroj: | Perceptual and motor skills. 40(1) |
| ISSN: | 0031-5125 |
| Popis: | Summary.-Handedness as a function of test complexity was investigated with two tests, Dotting and Tapping-on-squares. For each one three levels of complexity were established by varying radius (Dotting) and square sides (Tapping-on-squares). Administration of the different complexity levels to a total of 310 third and fourth grade boys and girls showed that the rare of lefthandedness increased from 6% "00 16% with decreasing level of test complexity. It is concluded that optimal classi€ication of handedness is only made possible by maximal levels of test complexity, which have to be established empirically for different populations. Development of a hand-dominance-test (Steingrueber, 1971) showed that the three scales with highest retest reliabilities were Dotting (marking pencil dots into irregularly aligned circles), Tapping-on-squares (marking pencil dots into aligned squares), and Tracing (drawing a pencil line into an irregular parallel track without touching the borders). Right and left hands were tested successively with these three subscales, and scoring was based on the achievement difference of both hands and not on hand preference. The scales identified different proportions of left-handers out of the same population, namely, 2% (Dotting), 11 % (Tapping-on-squares) , and 35 % (Tracing). This considerable variation was obtained although a factor analysis of intercorrelations, still including other tests, showed all three criteria to be highly correlated with the first factor. Therefore, the different proportions of left-handers were not related to the fact that different dimensions of handedness were measured with each scale; rather it could only be a matter of positional change. In other words, the positions of Ss in relation to each other were maintained and only a shift of the zero point of the scale (defined as "equal achievement of both hands" or "ambidexterity") occurred. The consequences are of special importance for applications in this field because all research work in clinical and educational problems of handedness (cf. Hecaen & de Ajuriaguerra, 1964; Sovak, 1968) is invalidated when one test classifies only 2% and another test 35% as left-handed Ss. The following study intends to clarify the conditions of varying classifications of left- and right-handedness by analyzing the shift of the zero point of the scale. Blau (1946, p. 36 ff.) intends to explain this shift by presupposing that a test of handedness must demand a certain amount of psychomotor complexity in order to show the dominance of one hand over the other. It can therefore be assumed that in extremely simple tests both hands are equally competent. Under these conditions two not completely independent hypotheses on |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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