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Functional asymmetry in a simple coincidence-anticipation task: Effects of handedness

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17461390802603903

1746-1391

Paula Rodrigues, Olga Vasconcelos, João Barreiros, Ricardo Barbosa, Fábio Trifilio,

Motor Control and Adaptation

Abstract Right‐ and left‐handed performance presents different degrees of manual functional asymmetry, because left‐handers usually present lower asymmetry in several tasks. Thus, we asked 27 right‐handed and 33 left‐handed male and female adolescents to perform a coincidence‐anticipation task. Absolute, constant, and variable errors were calculated for each participant, for the preferred and non‐preferred hand, as well as the performance asymmetry index. Results demonstrated that: (i) right‐ and left‐handers performed to a similar level; (ii) both right‐ and left‐handers were less variable when using their left hand; (iii) males were more accurate and less variable than their female counterparts. Although handedness failed to show a significant effect, our results demonstrate that both performing hand and gender have an influence on coincidence timing ability. The gender‐related effect lends support to the idea that differences exist in the neural mechanisms of visuospatial processing between the sexes, and the performing hand‐related effect is supposed to reflect the right hemisphere advantage in movement planning.