Enhanced articulatory speed in ambidexters.

The possibility that incomplete speech lateralization might be related to reduced articulatory speed was investigated in two studies with normal, young adults. Contrary to expectations, speech was produced faster by ambidextrous subjects than by either strongly left- or strongly right-handed subjects under a number of conditions. However, there were no differences in speech lateralization between these groups when lateralization was measured using dichotic listening scores. In a second study, the superiority of ambidextrous subjects was found to extend to certain manual movement tasks as well.