Left-Handed Number Sense Is Right

May 22, 2008

Research suggests a link between your finger-counting habits (preferring your left hand) and numerical cognition, which may have implications for mathematics teaching as well as the rehabilitation of those who have lost a sense of numeracy.

Martin Fischer of The University of Dundee in Scotland has found that people apparently associate small-number tasks with left-sided space. The tasks he instructed 445 adults to do were to count single digits; identify odd or even numbers; and push left- or right-sided buttons.

Results showed that two-thirds of the participants preferred to use the left hand regardless of whether they were left- or right-handed! 

Fischer's article, called "Finger Counting Habits Modulate Spatial-Numerical Associations, appeared in the neurological journal Cortex (2008; 44: 386-392).

Source: AlphaGalileo.org (May 6)