A person's motor ability may be influenced by one's sex and verbal tasks. We hypothesized that a difficult verbal task would interfere with motor skills on the right hand more for men than women due to lateralization of the brain. The balancing times of a dowel were compared between males and females between 6 different conditions. They either used their right or left hand to balance while saying the alphabet forwards, backwards or not at all. The hypothesis was supported with males performing worst with the right hand backwards condition (p<.005). This corroborated with previous research on the topic. Future research might want to take brain imaging into consideration.
[...] Discussion Our research suggests that gender influences the lateralization of the brain. Male's reduction in balance times in the right hand alphabet backwards condition reflects the idea that men have more lateralization in speech than women. Interactions between hand placement, verbal task and sex, influence balance times. The study corroborated the results found by Johnson and Kozma, (1977). The reduced balance times in the right hand alphabet backwards condition supports the hypothesis that men have more lateralized speech processing than women. [...]
[...] Stop watches which measured to the hundredth of a second, and data sheets that instructed the order the subject was to balance the dowel in which condition. Procedure The study was conducted in a classroom or in a hallway on campus. The instructor first briefed the subjects about the experiment and the instructions were read aloud to the class. Subjects split up into groups of two and were given stopwatches, data sheets and dowels. One subject of a pair began balancing a dowel on their index finger while the other recorded the time the dowel was balanced for. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
