Hostname: page-component-669899f699-vbsjw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-29T04:03:26.428Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hand Preference Patterns in Psychiatric Patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

W. A. Lishman  and
E. R. L. McMeekan
W. A. Lishman
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
E. R. L. McMeekan
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

A brief survey, using a standardized questionnaire, has been made of hand preference patterns in a series of patients admitted to hospital with functional psychiatric disorders. A small but significant shift towards left hand preference has been observed, more marked in the young patients and virtually confined to the males. Psychotic patients show such a shift more clearly than neurotic or personality disordered patients. Simple genetic factors do not appear to be responsible for these sinistral tendencies. The findings are discussed in relation to possible acquired abnormalities of functional brain organization.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 129 , Issue 2 , August 1976 , pp. 158 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Annett, Marion (1970) A classification of hand preferences by association analysis. British Journal of Psychology, 61, 303–21.Google Scholar
Buffery, A. W. H. & Gray, J. A. (1972) Sex differences in the development of spatial and linguistic skills. In Gender Differences: Their Autogeny and Significance (eds Ounsted, C. and Taylor, D. C.). Edinburgh: Churchill-Livingstone.Google Scholar
Davison, K. & Bagley, C. R. (1969) Schizophrenia-like psychoses associated with organic disorders of the central nervous system: a review of the literature. In Current Problems in Neuropsychiatry (ed Herrington, R. N.). British Journal of Psychiatry Special Publication No. 4. Ashford, Kent: Headley Brothers.Google Scholar
Flor-Henry, P. (1969) Psychosis and temporal lobe epilepsy: a controlled investigation. Epilepsia, 10, 363–95.Google Scholar
Flor-Henry, P. (1974) Psychosis, neurosis and epilepsy. Developmental and gender-related effects and their aetiological contribution. British Journal of Psychiatry, 124, 144–50.Google Scholar
Gruzelier, J. H. (1973) Bilateral asymmetry of skin conductance orienting activity and levels in schizophrenics. Biological Psychology, 1, 21–41.Google Scholar
Gruzelier, J. & Venables, P. (1974) Bimodality and lateral asymmetry of skin conductance orienting activity in schizophrenics: replication and evidence of lateral asymmetry in patients with depression and disorders of personality. Biological Psychiatry, 8, 55–73.Google ScholarPubMed
Kimura, D. (1967) Functional asymmetry of the brain in dichotic listening. Cortex, 3, 163–78.Google Scholar
Knox, C. & Kimura, D. (1970) Cerebral processing of non-verbal sounds in boys and girls. Neuropsychologia, 8, 227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMeekan, E. R. L. & Lishman, W. A. (1975) Retest reliabilities and inter-relationship of the Annett hand preference questionnaire and the Edinburgh handedness inventory. British Journal of Psychology, 66, 53–9.Google Scholar
Oddy, H. C. & Lobstein, T. J. (1972) Hand and eye dominance in schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 120, 331–2.Google Scholar
Walker, H. A. & Birch, H. G. (1970) Lateral preference and right-left awareness in schizophrenic children. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 151, 341–51.Google Scholar
Zangwill, O. L. (1960) Cerebral Dominance and its Relation to Psychological Function. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.