Cultural and environmental aspects influence lateral preferences

Abstract

Transcultural approaches comparing the distribution of lateral preference between countries focused primarily on handedness. However, other laterality dimensions may also be susceptible to cultural variations. The present study compared lateral preference in five dimensions (hand, foot, trunk, hearing, and visual) of young adults from Brazil and Mozambique. Two hundred and two undergraduate students participated in the study, of which 101 were Brazilian (21.7 ± 1.66 years old) and 101 Mozambican (25.6 ± 6.2 years old). The participants' lateral preference direction and degree were assessed using the global lateral preference inventory. Most Brazilians were classified in the moderate preference category, while Mozambicans had a higher frequency of individuals with strong preferences. Hence, Mozambicans presented a higher lateralization degree for all dimensions. A subsequent analysis considering only preference direction (right, left or indifferent), and not degree, did not show the same outcomes, revealing similarities in preference distribution between the two groups. This finding highlights the necessity to incorporate preference degrees in future analysis to not overlook potential differences. We also conclude lateral preference investigations with transcultural approaches should analyse beyond handedness, as other dimensions can also be modulated by cultural characteristics.

Inventories of Human Lateral Preference: A Systematic Review

“…Furthermore, most inventories for which construct and content validity research has been conducted considered the opinion of experienced researchers of the same culture in which the inventory was developed. Besides transcultural content validity, an instrument should also be applied and tested in different cultures, considering the influence exerted on lateral preference by cultural and environmental aspects (Bazo et al, 2022; Marcori & Okazaki, 2020). Only the inventory proposed by Prieur et al (2017) was applied in more than one country, but separate validity research in these separate contexts was not reported.…”

“…Nonetheless, factorial validity does not consider either cultural contexts or tasks with equivalent motor control requirements. Considering that lateral preference questions are motor/sensorial tasks performed with the limbs/organs, varying cultural contexts (Bazo et al, 2022; Raymond & Pontier, 2004) and motor control requirements (Bryden, 2016) would be expected to influence laterality expression. Thus, isolated factorial validity does not seem sufficient to guarantee an inventory’s integrity.…”

“…Most inventories provided assessment for handedness or footedness, while eyedness, earedness, trunk, and head/facial preference dimensions were less common (see Results, General Characteristics). Considering that recent evidence has suggested that lateral preference is multidimensional (Bazo et al, 2022; Marcori & Okazaki, 2020), a better option is to assess laterality in its entirety with more than one dimension. Accordingly, four instruments provided questions that assessed four lateral preference dimensions (i.e., hand, foot, eye, ear; Coren, 1993; Coren et al, 1979; Kashihara, 1979; Searleman & Porac, 2001), and uncommon dimensions were assessed in two instruments: trunk (Marim et al, 2011) and head/face (Prieur et al, 2017).…”

“…In this direction, the most recent meta-analysis on human handedness showed significant differences in left-handedness prevalence when using different classification methods (e.g., non-right and right vs right, mixed, and left handedness; Papadatou-Pastou et al, 2020). While the same was not observed for left-footedness prevalence (i.e., similar outcomes for different classification methods; Packheiser et al, 2020), recent evidence showed that five categories (e.g., consistent right, moderate right, indifferent, moderate left, consistent left preference), and not three, identified differences between cultural and age groups (Bazo et al, 2022;Marcori, Grosso, et al, 2019). Therefore, this five-level classification method may be a feasible approach for standardizing measurement and increasing cross-study comparability in future research.…”

“…Therefore, the classification of lateral preference in limited categories fails to represent the behavioral complexity of the phenomenon being measured. As shown in previous research, utilizing only three categories (right, left, or indifferent) can overlook age differences (Marcori, Grosso, et al, 2019) and cultural influences (Bazo et al, 2022). Given these limitations, different approaches have been proposed to analyze not only lateral preference direction (i.e., right or left), but also its degree (consistent, moderate, or a numerical index).…”