Handwriting, Typewriting and Handedness

Abstract

The performance of two groups of 20 trained touch typists and one group of 20 nontypists was tested on seven different typewriting exercises. Three of these exercises were executed entirely with the right hand and three were completed using only the left. A comparison of performances of the two sides showed, for the typists, no differences between the sides or a difference in favour of the left hand; and for the non-typists, a difference between hands in favour of the right side in two of the three comparisons. A comparison of handwriting performance with the preferred and non-preferred hands was carried out on 80 subjects. Apart from a highly significant difference in performance between the sides in favour of the preferred hand, this task showed, as did the typewriting task, a marked positive correlation between the performance levels of the two sides. These findings are briefly discussed in relation to the training histories of the subjects.