Plasticity of human handedness: Decreased one-hand bias and inter-manual performance asymmetry in expert basketball players

Abstract

Athletes frequently have to adapt their skills to fast changes of play, often requiring the flexible execution of a particular movement skill with either hand. To assess the influence of sport-specific expertise and extensive sport training on human laterality, a video analysis of regular basketball games was performed for professional, semi-professional, and amateur players to investigate how non-dominant hand use and proficiency change with increasing expertise. Our results showed that the right-hand (i.e. dominant hand) bias in basketball players is reduced with increasing expertise (i.e., competitive level). Accordingly, we found that professional players use their non-dominant hand more often and with greater success than semi-professional and amateur players. This was true for most of the basketball-specific skills. Based on these results, we assume that increasing amounts of bilateral practice can lead to a shift in task-specific manual preference towards a higher use of both hands in competition, as well as to a higher proficiency for non-dominant hand actions in particular. From an applied perspective, the more frequent use and higher proficiency of the non-dominant hand in professional basketball players, compared with amateurs, suggests that the context-specific and skilled use of the non-dominant hand is crucial for successful play at higher competitive levels in the sport of basketball.

From Specific Training to Global Shift of Manual Preference in Kung Fu Experts

“…These results suggest that hand selection would result from the interaction of performance asymmetries and task demands. In the sport context, sensorimotor performance of the nonpreferred limb may be improved for tasks specifi cally practiced (e.g., Stöckel & Weigelt, 2012 ), but not for those that are rather diff erent, such as those described in the Edinburgh Inventory. No direct transfer of learning is expected between the sport tasks and the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory tasks, due to their diff erent control requirements.…”

“…On the basis of fi ndings of smaller performance asymmetry in specifi c sport-related tasks ( Stöckel & Weigelt, 2012 ) and generalization of manual preference to tasks diff erent from those practiced ( Mikheev, et al ., 2002 ;Teixeira & Okazaki, 2007 ;Teixeira, et al ., 2010 ), the following hypotheses were tested:…”

Handedness of whip use by Australian Jockeys

“…However, it has been hypothesised that choice of handedness can be modulated by task constraints and that handedness can be adapted to specific situations. 9 It does not appear unreasonable to conclude that jockeys can develop the ability to use the whip in both hands, given that it has been previously shown that bilateral practice can reduce limb dominance in participants in soccer 10 and judo. 11 If jockeys learn to use the whip in both hands, and choose to vary the hand in which it is used, it is likely that the skill is of some value to them.…”

Perceived usefulness of mirrored video self-modeling in the development of bilateral competence in elite team-sports

“…As a consequence, the value of two-footed ability manifests in a substantial salary premium enjoyed by the 'two-footed' players (Bryson, Frick, & Simmons, 2012). Similarly, the capability of handling the ball equally well on both sides of the body makes a difference in basketball as well; a video analysis of basketball games of professional, semiprofessional, and amateur players demonstrated that professional players use their non-dominant hand more often and more efficiently than amateur players (Stöckel & Weigelt, 2012).…”

“…Despite the importance of non-preferred side skills in many sports (e.g. Carey et al, 2001;Petro & Szabo, 2016;Stöckel & Weigelt, 2012), the efficacy of mirror visual feedback, and the availability of mirrored video self-modelling, the method has received little VOLUME 13 | ISSUE 3 | 2018 | 623 attention. We are aware of three published papers testing the method of which one is ours (Petro & Bárdos, 2014;Steel, Adams, Coulson, Canning, & Hawtin, 2013;Steel & Ellem, 2016).…”