Left- and right-handers see people differently: free-vision perceptual asymmetries for chimeric stimuli

Abstract

We examined perceptual biases of 72 left-handers on six free-vision chimeric tasks, four entailing judgments of emotion (EP and EC tasks) or femininity (GP and GC tasks) in photographic and cartoon chimeric faces, and two of visuospatial properties in dot-filled rectangles (DN-dots nonface task) and asymmetrical shapes (SN-shapes nonface task), and compared to them to those of 72 right-handers previously described by Luh, Rueckert, and Levy (1991). Neither handedness group had an asymmetric bias on the SN task. Both had left hemispatial biases on all other tasks, which were equal across tasks for left-handers, larger on the EP and EC than other tasks for right-handers, and larger for right- than left-handers only on the EP and EC tasks. Task-specific reliable variance was decreased and variance common to all tasks was increased for left- compared to right-handers, which suggests less differentiation of processes in left- than right-handers.