Another theory maintains that the development of right-handedness is
due to differences in weight of the two lateral halves of the body;
this tends to bring more strain on one side than the other, and to
give more exercise, and so more development, to that side. This
evidently assumes that children are not right or left-handed before
they learn to stand. This my results given below show to be false.
Again, we are told that infants get right-handed by being placed on
one side too much for sleep; this can be shown to have little force
also when the precaution is taken to place the child alternately on
its right and left sides for its sleeping periods.
In the case of the child H., certain precautions were carefully
enforced. She was never carried about in arms at all, never walked
with when crying or sleepless; she was frequently turned over in her
sleep; she was not allowed to balance herself on her feet until a
later period than that covered by the experiments. Thus the conditions
of the rise of the right-handed era were made as simple and uniform as
possible.
The experiments included, besides reaching for colours, a great many
of reaching for other objects, at longer and shorter distances, and in
unsymmetrical directions. I give some details of the results of the
experiments in which simple objects were used, extending over a period
of four months, from the fifth to the ninth in her life. The number of
experiments at each sitting varied from ten to forty, the position of
the child being reversed as to light from windows, position of
observation, etc., after half of each series.
No trace of preference for either hand was discernible during this
period; indeed, the neutrality was as complete as if it had been
arranged beforehand, or had followed the throwing of dice.
I then conceived the idea that possibly a severer distance test might
affect the result and show a marked preferential response by one hand
over the other. I accordingly continued to use a neutral stimulus, but
placed it from twelve to fifteen inches away from the child. This
resulted in very hard straining on her part, with all the signs of
physical effort (explosive breathing sounds resulting from the setting
of the larynx, rush of blood to the head, seen in the flushing of the
face, etc.). The number of experiments in each series was
intentionally made very small, from one to twelve, in order to avoid
fatigue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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