THE EFFECTS OF HANDEDNESS ON SPATIAL LEARNING AND MEMORY

Abstract

Handedness and hand preference have been shown to affect a person's daily life. Multiple areas of cognition may be influenced by hand preference. Prior literature on the effects of handedness on spatial learning and memory has conflicting results. The purpose of the present study is to examine left-handed and right-handed individuals’ visuospatial abilities and visual memory using a landmark navigation task. This study used a landmark navigation task to determine whether participants could indicate if a landmark seen during a video was to the left or right of a still image position. Participants were recruited from Prolific and were 203 young adult men and women (ages 18-25). The analysis revealed no significant differences in landmark navigation task performance among left-handed, right-handed, and ambidextrous groups. These results suggest that handedness did not significantly affect scores on the landmark navigation task. It is important for future studies to continue to examine the relationship between handedness and spatial ability. This can help improve our understanding of the nature of handedness. Keywords: spatial ability, handedness, ambidextrous, spatial navigation, landmark cues.