Abstract
I describe methodological and statistical issues in the assessment of hand preference in nonhuman primates and discuss them in the context of a recent paper by McGrew and Marchant (1997) in which they conclude that there is no convincing evidence of population-level hand preferences in nonhuman primates. The criteria used by them to evaluate individual and population-level hand preferences are flawed, which results in an oversimplification of findings in nonhuman primates. I further argue that the classification schema used by McGrew and Marchant (1997) to compare hand preference distributions between species is theoretically weak and does not offer a meaningful way to compare human and nonhuman primate handedness.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Aruguete, M. S., Ely, E. A., and King, J. (1992). Laterality in spontaneous motor activity of chimpanzees and squirrel monkeys. Am. J. Primatol. 27: 177–188.
Boesch, C. (1991). Handedness in wild chimpanzees. Int. J. Primatol. 12: 541–558.
Bradshaw, J. L., and Rogers, L. (1993). The Evolution of Lateral Asymmetries, Language, Tool Use and Intellect, Academic Press, San Diego, California.
Byrne, R. W., and Byrne, J. M. (1991). Hand preferences in the skilled gathering tasks of mountain gorillas (Gorilla gorilla berengei). Cortex, 27: 521–536.
Colell, M., Segarra, M. D., and Pi, J. S. (1995). Manual laterality in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in complex tasks. J. Comp. Psychol. 109: 298–307.
Corballis, M. C. (1991). The Lopsided Ape: Evolution of the Generative Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Fagot, J., and Vauclair, J. (1991). Manual laterality in nonhuman primates: A distinction between handedness and manual specialization. Psychol. Bull. 109: 76–89.
Finch, G. (1941). Chimpanzee handedness. Science, 94: 117–118.
Healey, J. M., Liederman, J., and Geschwind, N. (1986). Handedness is not a unidimensional trait. Cortex, 22: 33–53.
Hopkins, W. D. (1995a). Hand preferences for a coordinated bimanual task in 110 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Cross-sectional analysis. J. Comp. Psychol. 109: 291–297.
Hopkins, W. D. (1995b). Hand preferences in juvenile chimpanzees: Continuity in development. Dev. Psychol. 31: 619–625.
Hopkins, W. D. (1996). Chimpanzee handedness revisited: 55 years since Finch (1941). Psychonom. Bull. Rev. 3: 449–457.
Hopkins, W. D., and Bard, K. A. (1993). Hemispheric specialization in infant chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Evidence for a relation with gender and arousal. Dev. Psychobiol. 26: 219–235.
Hopkins, W. D., and Bard, K. A. (1995). Evidence of asymmetries in spontaneous head turning in infant chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Behav. Neurosci. 109: 808–812.
Hopkins, W. D., and de Waal, F. D. (1995). Behavioral laterality in captive bonobos (Pan paniscus): Replication and extension. Int. J. Primatol. 16: 261–276.
Hopkins, W. D., and Leavens, D. A. (1998). Hand use and gestural communication in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). J. Comp. Psychol. 112: 95–99.
Hopkins, W. D., and Morris, R. D. (1993). Handedness in great apes. A review of findings. Int. J. Primatol. 14: 1–25.
Hopkins, W. D., and Rabinowitz, D. M. (1997). Manual specialization and tool-use in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): The effect of unimanual and bimanual strategies on hand preference. Laterality 2: 267–277.
Hopkins, W. D., Bard, K. A., Jones, A., and Bales, S. (1993). Chimpanzee hand preference for throwing and infant cradling: Implications for the origin of human handedness. Curr. Anthropol. 34: 786–790.
Lehman, R. A. W. (1989). Hand preferences of rhesus monkeys on differing tasks. Neuropsychologia, 27: 1193–1196.
Lehman, R. A. W. (1993). Manual preferences in prosimians, monkeys and apes. In Ward, J. P., and Hopkins, W. D. (eds.), Primate Laterality: Current Behavioral Evidence of Primate Asymmetries, Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 107–124.
MacNeilage, P. F., Studdert-Kennedy, M. G., and Lindblom, B. (1987). Primate handedness reconsidered. Behav. Brain Sci. 10: 247–303.
Marchant, L. F., and McGrew, W. C. (1991). Laterality of function in apes: A meta-analysis of methods. J. Hum. Evol. 21: 425–438.
Marchant, L. F., McGrew, W. C., and Eibs-Eibesfeldt, I. (1995). Is human handedness universal? Ethological analysis from three traditional cultures. Ethology 101: 239–258.
McGrew, W. C., and Marchant, L. F. (1992). Chimpanzees, tools, and termites: Hand preference or handedness? Curr. Anthropol. 33: 114–119.
McGrew, W. C., and Marchant, L. F. (1996). On which side of the apes? Ethological study of laterality of hand use. In McGrew, W. C., Marchant, L. F., and Nishida, T. (eds.), Great Ape Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 255–272.
McGrew, W. C., and Marchant, L. F. (1997). On the other hand: Current issues in and meta-analysis of the behavioral laterality of hand function in nonhuman primates. Yearbk. Phys. Anthropol. 40: 201–232.
McGrew, W. C., Marchant, L. F., Wrangham, R. W., and Klein, H. (1999). Manual laterality in anvil use: Wild chimpanzees cracking Strychnos fruits. Laterality 4: 79–87.
Panger, M. A. (1998). Hand preference in free-ranging white-throated capuchins (Cebus capucinus) in Costa Rica. Int. J. Primatol. 19: 133–163.
Shafer, D. D. (1997). Hand preference behaviors shared by two groups of captive bonobos. Primates, 38: 303–313.
Steenhuis, R. E. (1996). Hand preference and performance in skilled and unskilled activities. In Elliot, D., and Roy, E. A. (eds.), Manual Asymmetries in Motor Performance CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp. 132–142.
Sugiyama, Y., Fushimi, T., Sakura, O., and Matsuzawa, T. (1993). Hand preference and tool use in wild chimpanzees. Primates 34: 151–159.
Vauclair, J., & Fagot, J. (1993). The effect of familiarity on hand preference in gorillas and baboons. In Ward, J. P., and Hopkins, W. D. (eds.), Primate Laterality: Current Behavioral Evidence of Primate Asymmetries, Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 107–124.
Ward, J. P., and Hopkins, W. D. (eds). (1993). Primate Laterality: Current Behavioral Evidence of Primate Asymmetries, Springer-Verlag, New York.
Ward, J. P., Milliken, G. W., Dodson, D. L., Stafford, D. K., and Wallace, M. (1990) Handedness as a function of sex and age in a large population of Lemur. J. Comp. Psychol. 104: 167–173.
Warren, J. M. (1980). Handedness and laterality in humans and other animals. Physiol. Psychol. 8: 351–359.
Westergaard, G. C., and Suomi, S. J. (1996). Hand preference for a bimanual task in tufted capuchin (Cebus apella) and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). J. Comp. Psychol. 110: 406–411.
Westergaard, G. C., Kuhn, H. E., and Suomi, S. J. (1998). Bipedal posture and hand preference in humans and other primates. J. Comp. Psychol. 112: 55–64.
Yeo, R. A., and Gangestad, S. W. (1993). Developmental origins of variation in human hand preference. Genetica 89: 281–296.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hopkins, W.D. On the Other Hand: Statistical Issues in the Assessment and Interpretation of Hand Preference Data in Nonhuman Primates. International Journal of Primatology 20, 851–866 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020822401195
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020822401195