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Do right- and left-handed monkeys differ on cognitive measures?

W D Hopkins1, D A Washburn

  • 1Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303.

Behavioral Neuroscience
|December 1, 1994
PubMed
Summary

Hand preference in monkeys reveals cognitive differences. Right-handed monkeys excelled at form-based tasks, while left-handed monkeys performed better on spatial tasks, suggesting neurological laterality.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Comparative Psychology
  • Animal Cognition

Background:

  • Hand preference, a measure of behavioral laterality, is well-documented in humans and some animal species.
  • Understanding the relationship between behavioral laterality and cognitive function can provide insights into nervous system organization.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether hand preference in monkeys correlates with differences in cognitive performance across various tasks.
  • To explore potential links between behavioral laterality and the functional organization of the primate brain.

Main Methods:

  • Compared 12 left-handed and 14 right-handed monkeys on six cognitive tasks, including maze-solving and delayed response tasks with spatial or form cues.
  • The primary dependent variable was the number of trials required to reach a training criterion for each task.
Keywords:
NASA Discipline Space Human FactorsNon-NASA Center

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Main Results:

  • Significant differences in cognitive performance were observed between left- and right-handed monkeys on two delayed response tasks.
  • Right-handed monkeys learned the delayed response task using form cues faster than left-handed monkeys.
  • Left-handed monkeys learned the delayed response task using spatial position cues faster than right-handed monkeys (p < .05).

Conclusions:

  • Hand preference in monkeys is associated with distinct cognitive performance patterns, particularly in tasks involving different types of cues.
  • These findings suggest that behavioral laterality can serve as a sensitive indicator of underlying functional asymmetries in the nervous system.
  • Further research into behavioral laterality may illuminate the neural basis of cognitive specialization.