COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE AS A FUNCTION OF SEX AND HANDEDNESS - EVALUATION OF THE LEVY HYPOTHESIS

Investigated incidence of left-handedness and non-right-handedness in a sample of 9th-grade students (n = 313). In comparison, incidence among undergraduates is underestimated. Girls were not significantly more right-handed than boys in the 9th grade sample but were significantly (p<.01) more right-handed than boys in a sample of math students, grades 9-11 (n = 1097). Handedness did not affect math achievement (Test of Academic Progress), verbal (Quick Word Test), or spatial (Space Relations Test of the Differential Aptitude Test) performance in the 9th (n = 108) or 10th (n = 75) grade students. for 11th grade students (n = 98) a significant sex-by-handedness-by-measures (verbal spatial) interaction was found (p<.05). Results did not support the hypothesis of Levy's that left-handedness decreases spatial performance and benefits verbal performance, nor did the results support the further hypothesis that the cognitive pattern of higher verbal than spatial performance often considered characteristic of females can be attributed to more bilateral cerebral verbal function in females as in left-handers. © 1979, Society for the Psychology of Women. All rights reserved.