A nontrivial motor performance difference between right-handers and left-handers: Attention as intervening variable in the expression of handedness.

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Abstract
The differential movement experience of the two hands in right- and left-handers tends to exaggerate performance asymmetries in right-handers while minimizing such asymmetries in left-handers. This presents a problem in validating models of handedness through performance measures. A paradigm that largely reduces the importance of motor factors by manipulating attention in a simple dual task allows a comparison of performance asymmetries in right- and let-handers without the contaminant of differential motor experience. The results of this study suggest that with such a task, right-handers, as a group, show a directional bias in performing the dual task, whereas no such group bias is evident in left-handers. This is in agreement with Annett''s (1978) model that proposes an inherent and directionally consistent group bias for right-handers, whereas left-handers are said to lack such a bias.