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Human handedness: an inherited evolutionary trait.

Gillian S Forrester1, Caterina Quaresmini, David A Leavens

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW, England, United Kingdom. g.forrester@westminster.ac.uk

Behavioural Brain Research
|October 2, 2012
PubMed
Summary

Human right-handedness is context-specific, not species-specific. This trait, influenced by tool use, is inherited from a common ancestor shared with great apes, showing similar patterns in children and apes.

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Area of Science:

  • Comparative psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Human evolution

Background:

  • Human handedness, particularly right-handedness, is often considered species-specific and linked to language areas in the brain.
  • Previous methods for assessing handedness lack context-sensitivity and cross-species comparability.
  • The evolutionary origins of human handedness remain debated, with theories ranging from language specialization to tool use inheritance.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether human right-handedness is context-specific rather than species-specific.
  • To compare manual action biases in children with those of great apes using a context-sensitive methodology.
  • To explore the evolutionary roots of human handedness by examining shared behaviors with ancestral species.

Main Methods:

  • A bottom-up, context-sensitive method was used to quantitatively assess manual actions in typically developing children during naturalistic behavior.
  • Manual actions were classified based on the target: animate (social partner, self) or inanimate (non-living functional objects).
  • Focal video sampling and corpus data-mining were employed for direct comparison with captive gorillas and chimpanzees.

Main Results:

  • Children demonstrated a significant right-hand bias for manual actions directed toward inanimate targets.
  • No significant right-hand bias was observed for manual actions directed toward animate targets in children.
  • Handedness patterns in children showed similarities to those observed in gorillas and chimpanzees, supporting a shared behavioral origin.

Conclusions:

  • Human population-level right-handedness is context-specific and likely inherited from a common ancestor behavior shared with great apes.
  • Cerebral lateralization underlying human handedness is not a novel or human-unique characteristic.
  • The findings support the theory that human right-handedness evolved from tool use behaviors present in ancestral populations.