Right handed

Handedness is a better (faster or more precise) performance or individual preference for use of a hand, known as the dominant hand; the less capable or less preferred hand is called the non-dominant hand. Men are somewhat more likely to express a strongly dominant left hand than women. Studies suggest that 70–95% of the world population is right-handed.

Infants have been known to fluctuate heavily when choosing a hand to lead in grasping and object manipulation tasks. This is especially shown when observing hand dominance in one versus two-handed grasping tasks. Between 36 and 48 months, variability between handedness in one handed grasping begins to decline significantly. This difference can be seen earlier in bi-manual manipulation tasks. 18-36 month old children showed more hand preference when performing bi-manipulation tasks than simple grasping. The decrease in handedness variability for 36-48 month old children could likely be attributed to preschool or kindergarten attendance. The increase in required single hand grasping activities such as writing or coloring can force children to develop a hand preference.

There are several theories of how handedness develops in individual humans. Occurrences during prenatal development may be important; researchers studied fetuses in utero and determined that handedness in the womb was a very accurate predictor of handedness after birth. In a 2013 study, 39% of infants (6 to 14 months) and 97% of toddlers (18 to 24 months) demonstrated a hand preference.

One common theory, as to how handedness affects the hemispheres, is the brain hemisphere division of labor. Since speaking and handiwork require fine motor skills, its presumption is that it would be more efficient to have one brain hemisphere do both, rather than having it divided up. Since in most people, the left side of the brain controls speaking, right-handedness predominates. This theory also predicts that left-handed people have a reversed brain division of labor.

Verbal processing in right-handed individuals takes place mostly in the left hemisphere, whereas visuospatial processing is mostly done in the opposite hemisphere. Left-handed individuals have a heterogeneous brain organization in which their brain hemisphere is either organized in the same way as right-handers (but with the hemispheres reversed) or even such that both hemispheres are used for verbal processing. When the average is taken across all types of left-handedness, it shows that left-handers are less lateralized.

Handedness displays a complex inheritance pattern. For example, if both parents of a child are left-handed, there is a 26% chance of that child being left-handed. A large study of twins from 25,732 families by Medland et al. (2006) has indicated that the heritability of handedness is roughly 24%.

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