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Quantitative assessment of handedness is required in various clinical and research settings in psychology, neuroscience, and medicine. In the present study we tested the reliability and validity of a Japanese version of the FLANDERS handedness questionnaire, which was a new measure of skilled hand preference originally reported by Nicholls, Thomas, Loetscher, and Grimshaw (2013). Participants (N=431) completed three types of handedness questionnaires: the FLANDERS handedness questionnaire, Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, and H · N handedness test. Factor analysis revealed that the Japanese version of FLANDERS handedness questionnaire had a single-factor structure and high internal consistency. This questionnaire also posssed high test-retest reliability and criterion-referenced validity. These results indicate that the Japanese version of the FLANDERS handedness questionnaire is a valid and useful measure of skilled hand preference for Japanese participants.

Recent studies have shown that (1) the global precedence effects in processing the hierarchically organized stimulus can be attenuated by eliminating the low spatial frequencies contained in the stimulus and (2) the human magnocellular pathway is responsible for processing low spatial frequencies and the pathway can be attenuated by imposing a red background on the stimulus. In the present study, a reaction-time experiment was conducted to examine the effect of background color of the stimulus to the processing of the hierarchically organized stimulus. The result showed that although the control condition (a green background) produced a prototypical asymmetric global interference, a red background that was equiluminant to the green background produced a symmetrical interference. It was concluded that the human magnocellular pathway is at least partially responsible in producing the global precedence effects.

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