Hale-Bopp and Handedness: Individual Differences in Memory for Orientation

Abstract

The accuracy with which a person recalls the orientation of a human figure or head has been shown to depend systematically on the person's handedness. This study investigated whether memory for the orientation of an inanimate object displays a similar effect. In contrast to previous work investigating memory for depictions encountered over many years, the present work focused on memory for a unique event that engaged considerable attention over a relatively brief period-Comet Hale-Bopp. The results showed that although right-handed and left-handed individuals did not differ in their memory for semantic information concerning the comet, they did differ in their memory for its orientation. Right-handed people were significantly more likely than left-handed people both to recall and to recognize the comet as facing to the left. The results suggest that memory performance may be influenced by patterns of underlying cerebral motor activation.Comets have been the subject of great popular interest for millennia (see Schechner Genuth, 1997). They have often been interpreted as portents of important terrestrial events. A celebrated example is the comet that was associated with the invasion of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, and as a result is portrayed in the Bayeaux Tapestry. Newton's development of gravitational theory meant that he and Halley were able to provide the basis for a modern understanding of cometary orbits. Indeed, the comet of 1066 was shown to represent an early appearance by a comet whose regular recurrence was identified by Halley and which thus bears his name. Even when viewed as a purely physical phenomenon, the comet has retained its unique interest as a form of heavenly body that on relatively rare occasions is temporarily bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. This was demonstrated by the great attention paid during 1997 to the most striking comet for many decades, Hale-Bopp (e.g., Burnham, 1997).Given that comets have been appearing throughout history, it may appear unlikely that anything new remains to be discovered about the way that people process information about them cognitively. However, a recent set of unexpected findings concerning the influence of handedness on memory for orientation is suggestive. The first of these findings extended previous work (Jones, 1990;Rubin & Kontis, 1983) investigating memory for coin designs. Both British and Canadian coins bear a portrait facing to the viewer's right. When people were asked to recall verbally the direction in which the head faces (Jones & Martin, 1997;McKelvie & Aikins, 1993), left-handed people were significantly more accurate than right-handed people. Subsequently, it was shown (M. Martin & Jones, 1998) that a similar phenomenon is observed when people attempt to recall the orientation of human figures depicted on common road signs; for right-facing and left-facing figures, recall is higher for, respectively, left-handed and right-handed people.A comet also appears in a particular orientation, with a head at one end and a l...

Motor imagery theory of a contralateral handedness effect in recognition memory: Toward a chiral psychology of cognition.

“…But in addition, left-facing heads were also used as stimuli and found to be more likely to be correctly recognized by right-handed than by left-handed participants. Consistent with this, it has been shown that right-handed people are also more likely than left-handed people to recall correctly that the head of a comet faced to the left (Martin & Jones, 1999). Thus, overall, there was a significant interaction here between recognition of left-facing and right-facing heads by left-handed and right-handed participants.…”

Right-Handers and Americans Favor Turning to the Right

“…There is some evidence that handedness is associated with differences in the ways that people see and interpret the world. For example, Martin and Jones (1999) found that handedness affects memory for the orientation of objects. The comet Hale-Bopp's orientation, as viewed by experiment participants, would have been facing downward to the left, meaning that the comet's head was to the viewer's left, and the tail would trail behind to the viewer's right.…”

Perceiving imitatible stimuli: Consequences of isomorphism between input and output.

“…Several studies report that right-handers tend to recall familiar human figures (e.g., on road signs or coins) as facing left, whereas left-handers tend to recall the figures as facing right (Jones, 1990;Martin & Jones, 1998, 1999Rubin & Kontis, 1983). The effect has also been observed for memory for the direction of the Hale-Bopp comet, indicating that the stimuli need not be human (Martin & Jones, 1999). The authors suggested that the handedness effect is mediated by motoric processes that would be used for drawing.…”