Who are smarter—righties or lefties? As is often the case with social science research, the frustrating answer is “it depends”. But there are certain areas where left-handed people do seem to behave better. One such area is called “divergent thinking(发散性思维)” or the ability to think out new ideas based on existing information. That’s according to 1995 research by psychologist(心理学家) Stanley Coren, which was repeated more recently in a New Yorker article. Coren carried out several experiments that suggest left-handedness is associated with better divergent thinking, at least in men.
In one experiment, nearly 1,000 men and women had to think of ways to combine two common objects not typically used together, like a pole and a tin can. In another, participants had to organize a series of words into as many different categories as possible. Results showed that left-handed men performed better on these measures of divergent thinking than right-handed men —although there was no such difference for women.
Coren was able to effectively rule out the possibility that lefties are simply smarter by administering a test of convergent thinking(集合思维), which involves applying existing knowledge and rules to come up with a correct answer. Participants had to indicate which word in a series didn’t fit the pattern—and righties performed slightly better.
In the paper, Coren notes lefties are more common among architects, artists, and chess experts. More recent research has found that lefties have great skills of dealing space and working memory. Although none of these findings prove that lefties are more intelligent, they do suggest that they have certain cognitive(认知) advantages. Those advantages may influence not only their performance in psychological experiments, but also the professional paths they take and the areas they do well in.
本时文内容由奇速英语国际教育研究院原创编写,未经书面授权,禁止复制和任何商业用途,版权所有,侵权必究!(作者投稿及时文阅读定制请联系微信:18980471698)