Handedness may be More Important than Sex as a Variable Underlying Individual Differences in Visual Performance

Abstract

Evidence is presented that there are individual differences in the early stages of information processing which are due, in part, to the criteria adopted by the left and right hemispheres in perceptual organization. Sex differences were found in organization criteria and in the extent that both hemispheres participate in ordering perceptual experience. Of perhaps greater importance in terms of practical implications, significant and dramatic differences were found in perceptual organization for “extreme right-handers” and “right-handers who tend towards mix-handedness.” “Mixed-handers” of both sexes grouped states into perceptual units to a significantly greater extent than their very right-handed counterparts. A method is described for determining the relative location of grouping criteria on the decision axis.