Beyond handedness: assessing younger adults and older people lateral preference in six laterality dimensions

ABSTRACT

Lateral preference is influenced by many different factors. Although studies that assessed handedness contributed greatly to our understanding of the phenomenon, looking to other dimensions of motor laterality, such as lower limbs, trunk, visual and hearing preference, may be an interesting strategy to further advance in the field. Comparing different age groups with a complete inventory also contributes to understanding the ageing impact on these variables. Our aim, therefore, was to assess six motor laterality dimensions in younger adults and older people. Two hundred subjects participated in this study (102 adults, 30.6 ± 11.2 years old, and 98 elders, 70.4 ± 7.22 years old) and lateral preference was assessed by the Global Lateral Preference Inventory. We verified significant differences between groups in all dimensions, except the visual one, with proportionally stronger right preference in the older group. Compared to other dimensions, higher frequency of ambidexterity was observed in trunk, hearing and visual preference for both groups. These results might indicate that lateral preference is, indeed, multifactorial, being affected by ageing, task complexity and other possible related aspects.

KEYWORDS:

• Footedness
• ageing
• motor laterality
• lateral preference
• hemisphere specificity

Acknowledgements

The authors are much indebted to all participants and other members of the research group that aided paper development. This specific research was not funded by any institution, except for studying scholarships to author AJM (granted by CAPES).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Alexandre Jehan Marcori http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8293-6034