A performance measure of the degree of hand preference

The present paper describes a performance method for determining hand prefe rence. The task requires participants to reach into different regions of he mispace to perform various actions (point, pick up, toss, sweep, and positi on) with a Jewel located at each position. In accordance with the participa nts' hand preference as measured by the Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire, the preferred hand was used more frequently on the various performance task s. The distribution of hand use in working space indicates that preferred h and use was almost exclusive for actions carried out in ipsilateral hemispa ce, while it is used only moderately for actions in contralateral hemispace , revealing that this hand is used throughout a wider range of extrapersona l space than the nonpreferred hand. These trends were observed across all o f the performance tasks, suggesting that task complexity did not affect the frequency of preferred hand use either overall or, more specifically, in r ight hemispace, as was predicted. This finding is inconsistent with empiric al work on questionnaires indicating that verbal reports of preferred hand use increase for more complex tasks (e.g., Steenhuis & Bryden, 1988). As we ll, performance on the preferential reaching task correlated significantly with hand preference as measured on the Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire ( Bryden, 1977), unlike the other performance measure examined, indicating th at the preferential reaching tusk is sensitive to differences in the degree of hand preference. (C) 2000 Academic Press.