Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2013 May 30;8(5):e64876. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0064876. Print 2013.
It has been known for many years that hand preference is associated with cerebral lateralisation for language, but the relationship is weak and indirect. It has been suggested that quantitative measures of differential hand skill or reaching preference may provide more valid measures than traditional inventories, but to date these have not been validated against direct measures of cerebral lateralisation. We investigated the associations of three different handedness assessments; 1) a hand preference inventory, 2) a measure of relative hand skill, and 3) performance on a reaching task; with cerebral lateralisation for language function as derived from functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound during a language production task, in a group of 57 typically developing children aged from 6 to 16 years. Significant correlations between cerebral lateralisation for language production and handedness were found for a short version of the inventory and for performance on the reaching task. However, confidence intervals for the correlations overlapped and no one measure emerged as clearly superior to the others. The best handedness measures accounted for only 8-16% of the variance in cerebral lateralisation. These findings indicate that researchers should not rely on handedness as an indicator of cerebral lateralisation for language. They also imply that lateralisation of language and motor functions in the human brain show considerable independence from one another.
多年来，人们已经知道手的偏好与语言的大脑侧化有关，但这种关系是微弱和间接的。有人认为，定量测量手部技能或伸手偏好的差异可能比传统的评估更有效，但迄今为止，这些方法尚未通过对大脑侧化的直接测量来验证。我们调查了三种不同的利手评估方法；1）手偏好量表，2）相对手部技能测量，3）在语言产生任务中完成伸手任务的表现；与 57 名年龄在 6 至 16 岁的典型发育儿童在语言产生任务期间通过功能 transcranial 多普勒超声得出的语言功能的大脑侧化之间的相关性。在语言产生的短量表和伸手任务的表现方面，发现了语言产生的大脑侧化与利手之间的显著相关性。然而，相关性的置信区间重叠，没有一种测量方法明显优于其他方法。最佳的利手测量方法仅能解释大脑侧化的 8-16%的差异。这些发现表明，研究人员不应该依赖利手作为语言大脑侧化的指标。它们还表明，人类大脑中语言和运动功能的侧化彼此之间具有相当大的独立性。
