Manual asymmetry in weight discrimination: hand preference or hemispheric specialization?

One-handed weight discrimination was investigated as a function of hand, hand preference and hemispheric specialization. Differential thresholds (DLs) were measured for the left and right hands and left- and right-handed male and female subjects. DLs were found to be lower for the hand contralateral to the ear that proved superior in a verbal dichotic listening task. These results establish the existence of a manual asymmetry for the discrimination of lifted weight with the advantage accruing for the hand contralateral to the non-language cerebral hemisphere.