Hand Use Among Primates

Essay # 25247

Anthropology > Scientific / Medical
Biology > Zoology
Communication > Language and Speech

This paper examines hand use and preference among human and non-human primates, employing Calvin's evolutionary hypothesis as a backdrop.

1,928 words () | 45 sources | MLA | 2001 Australia

Paper Summary:

The writer performs a study in which two approaches were made towards handedness. The first approach was a behavioral measure (Bishop et al 1996), 'quantifying consistency of hand preference'. The second approach uses a self-evaluating handedness inventory (Oldfield 1971), which provides a quantitative index of handedness, rather than binary classification' (Bishop et al 1996).

From the Paper:

"Cerebral specialisation, or brain lateralisation while not unique to humans (McKenzie et al 1998), appears to correspond with behavioural asymmetry in human handedness. In a predominantly contralateral shift, sensory input from the right hand crosses over to the left hemisphere of the brain, and conversely sensory data from the left hand crosses over to the right side of the brain (Sternberg 1995). While the hemispheres may differ functionally, they are not completely independent as 'interhemispheric integration occurs by the corpus callosum' (Desmedt 1977), and in visual stimulus, information is sent to both contralateral and ipsilateral hemispheres (Ball 1998)."