Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 12, 2026

Block Building Task Identifies Distinct Groups of Left/Right-hand Choice Patterns After Unilateral Peripheral Nerve Injury
Published on: March 21, 2025
Evolutionary origins of human handedness: evaluating contrasting hypotheses
Hélène Cochet1, Richard W Byrne
1Scottish Primate Research Group, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary Squad, South street, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9JP, UK. hc42@st-andrews.ac.uk
Abstract:
Variation in methods and measures, resulting in past dispute over the existence of population handedness in nonhuman great apes, has impeded progress into the origins of human right-handedness and how it relates to the human hallmark of language. Pooling evidence from behavioral studies, neuroimaging and neuroanatomy, we evaluate data on manual and cerebral laterality in humans and other apes engaged in a range of manipulative tasks and in gestural communication. A simplistic human/animal partition is no longer tenable, and we review four (nonexclusive) possible drivers for the origin of population-level right-handedness: skilled manipulative activity, as in tool use; communicative gestures; organizational complexity of action, in particular hierarchical structure; and the role of intentionality in goal-directed action. Fully testing these hypotheses will require developmental and evolutionary evidence as well as modern neuroimaging data.
Related Concept Videos
Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary psychology provides one explanation for these findings, suggesting...
Evolutionary Psychology
Convergent Evolution
What is Evolutionary History?
Synteny and Evolution
Around 80 million years ago, the human and mice lineages diverged from the common ancestor. During the course of evolution, the ancestral chromosome underwent...
Lateralization

