Left-handed people appear to be less talented than right-handed people and do worse as a group. Those are the results of an Australian study among 5000 five-year-old children, of whom ten percent was left handed. It puts an end to the myths that left-handers would be more creative or have genius tendencies.

Psychologist Mike Nicholls from Flinders University Adelaide, Australia, who conducted the research and is in fact left-handed himself, studied the school performances of the children. When working in a group left-handers tend to do worse than right-handers.

The reduced cognitive ability that the left-handed children show is of the same magnitude as that of children being born prematurely.

© Jorn van Dooren | www.bitsofscience.org

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