Manual laterality and cognition through evolution: An archeological perspective

Uomini, Natalie; Ruck, Lana

doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.06.015

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 127 publications

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“…Similarly, the studies of language-trained apes (reviewed in Gillespie-Lynch et al 2014) give us some insight into what these animals are capable of with a large amount of training, although during evolution, there was no selection pressure to communicate with humans. Thus, these studies do not tell us much about apes, but rather about humans' specially evolved skills such as language (Morgan et al 2015;Uomini and Meyer 2013;Uomini 2009;Uomini 2014;Uomini 2017;Uomini and Ruck 2018). Instead, these studies can tell us what these species are able to learn about situations they do not encounter naturally.…”

Section: Current Hypotheses On Animal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fascination comes from the fact that these demonstrated abilities are comparable or even superior to those of our own species within the same domains. They are puzzling because these are cognitive domains, and some aspects of cognition were traditionally thought to represent a unique characteristic of human minds that distinguishes us from other animals more than any other trait (Premack 2007;Uomini 2008;Shettleworth 2012;Uomini 2014;MacLean 2016;Uomini and Ruck 2018;Uomini et al 2020). From an anthropocentric perspective, such skills would need an explanation because they challenge human superiority, but from a genuine biological perspective, such skills are simply examples of the unique traits that each species has evolved due to specific situations and needs.…”

Section: When Animals Outperform Humansmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

et al. 2020

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Using the comparative approach, researchers draw inferences about the evolution of cognition. Psychologists have postulated several hypotheses to explain why certain species are cognitively more flexible than others, and these hypotheses assume that certain cognitive skills are linked together to create a generally “smart” species. However, empirical findings suggest that several animal species are highly specialized, showing exceptional skills in single cognitive domains while performing poorly in others. Although some cognitive skills may indeed overlap, we cannot a priori assume that they do across species. We argue that the term “cognition” has often been used by applying an anthropocentric viewpoint rather than a biocentric one. As a result, researchers tend to overrate cognitive skills that are human-like and assume that certain skills cluster together in other animals as they do in our own species. In this paper, we emphasize that specific physical and social environments create selection pressures that lead to the evolution of certain cognitive adaptations. Skills such as following the pointing gesture, tool-use, perspective-taking, or the ability to cooperate evolve independently from each other as a concrete result of specific selection pressures, and thus have appeared in distantly related species. Thus, there is not “one cognition”. Our argument is founded upon traditional Darwinian thinking, which—although always at the forefront of biology—has sometimes been neglected in animal cognition research. In accordance with the biocentric approach, we advocate a broader empirical perspective as we are convinced that to better understand animal minds, comparative researchers should focus much more on questions and experiments that are ecologically valid. We should investigate nonhuman cognition for its own sake, not only in comparison to the human model.

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Section: Current Hypotheses On Animal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: When Animals Outperform Humansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

et al. 2020

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“…Handedness is the most prominent and widely studied behavioral asymmetry (Güntürkün & Ocklenburg, 2017;Michel, Babik, Nelson, Campbell, & Marcinowski, 2018;Papadatou-Pastou, 2011;Uomini & Ruck 2018). It can be defined as the preference to use one hand over the other for manual tasks and/or the ability to perform these tasks more efficiently with one hand (Corey, Hurley, & Foundas, 2001).…”

Section: Handedness and Cerebral Lateralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hand preference and Mathematical Learning Difficulties: New data from Greece, the United Kingdom, and Germany and two meta-analyses of the literature

Παπαδάτου-Παστού¹,

Panagiotidou²,

Abbondanza³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Objective: Increased rates of atypical handedness are observed in groups of neurotypical individuals who are low-performing in mathematical tasks as well as in individuals with special educational needs, such as dyslexia and autism. This is the first series of studies and meta-analyses to investigate whether elevated levels of atypical handedness are also to be found in individuals with Mathematical Learning Difficulties (MLD). Method: We report three new studies (N = 134; N = 1,899; N = 149) and two sets of meta-analyses (22 studies; N = 3,649) on the handedness rates of MLD and Typically Achieving (TA) individuals.Results: No evidence of a difference in atypical handedness was found when the direction of hand preference was used as the handedness measure, with the exception of weak evidence when writing hand was used as the handedness criterion. When combining data meta-analytically no hand preference differences between the MLD and TA were detected.Conclusions: There is very limited evidence for elevated levels of atypical hand preference in MLD. We suggest that: (i) potential handedness effects are subtle and require larger samples, (ii) direction of hand preference is not a sensitive enough measure of handedness, or that (iii) increased rates of atypical hand preference are related specifically to conditions that present with language difficulties, as handedness is a behavioral index for language lateralization, and not to conditions requiring special educational needs at large. Future studies need to investigate the possible relationship of hand skill and of degree of hand preference with MLD.

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Section: Handedness and Cerebral Lateralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hand preference and Mathematical Learning Difficulties: New data from Greece, the United Kingdom, and Germany and two meta-analyses of the literature

et al. 2021

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Increased rates of atypical handedness are observed in neurotypical individuals who are low-performing in mathematical tasks as well as in individuals with special educational needs, such as dyslexia. This is the first investigation of handedness in individuals with Mathematical Learning Difficulties (MLD). We report three new studies (N = 134; N = 1,893; N = 153) and two sets of meta-analyses (22 studies; N = 3,667). No difference in atypical hand preference between MLD and Typically Achieving (TA) individuals was found when handedness was assessed with selfreport questionnaires, but weak evidence of a difference was found when writing hand was the handedness criterion in Study 1 (p = .049). Similarly, when combining data meta-analytically, no hand preference differences were detected. We suggest that: (i) potential handedness effects require larger samples, (ii) direction of hand preference is not a sensitive enough measure of handedness in this context, or that (iii) increased rates of atypical hand preference are not associated with MLD. The latter scenario would suggest that handedness is specifically linked to language-related conditions rather than conditions related to cognitive abilities at large. Future studies need to consider hand skill and degree of hand preference in MLD.

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Manual laterality and cognition through evolution: An archeological perspective

Cited by 18 publications

References 127 publications

Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

Hand preference and Mathematical Learning Difficulties: New data from Greece, the United Kingdom, and Germany and two meta-analyses of the literature

Hand preference and Mathematical Learning Difficulties: New data from Greece, the United Kingdom, and Germany and two meta-analyses of the literature

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