Directional preferences in the rotational play behaviors of young children.

In a day-care setting, 33 girls and 34 boys, ranging in age from 36 to 73 months, responded to 30 tasks to obtain conventional measures of laterality and to determine their directional preferences on behaviors requiring whole body movement in a circle (circling) or pivoting about the body's vertical axis. Significant counterclockwise preferences were found for both kinds of turning behaviors, and there were no gender differences in these preferences. Increasing age was weakly associated with stronger right-handedness and counterclockwise preference on the circling tasks. These results are consistent with those of other studies and suggest that humans exhibit a small left-turning population preference in rotational movements.