Understanding Sign Language Could Depend On Whether You Use Your Left Or Right Hand, Study Says

Understanding sign language is important just as any language. Fortunately, a recent study had revealed that the speed of a person understanding sign languages actually depends on whether the speaker is right or left handed.

According to Medical Daily, the pioneers in the study published in the journal Cognition are scientists from the University of Birmingham in England. The study included 43 deaf fluent BSL signers of both handedness and have their speed response in the experiment assessed.

Afterward, the experiment concluded that in British Sign Language (BSL) signers, participants which are both handednesses tend to respond faster to speakers that use their right hand. The reason was then mentioned in the study to be that right-handed sign languages are more common and seen often. However, the signers were mentioned to respond more quickly to complex two-handed signs which are made by their same handedness.

It was then mentioned that the participants were shown a picture followed by the sign for common words as Science Daily reported. Hence, the idea of the motor theory of speech perception was linked. In which means that checking the body’s production system in perceiving spoken words goes the same for what sign languages convey.

"Had all signers performed better to right-handed input, it would suggest that how signers produce their own signs is not important for understanding,” study author Dr. Robin Thompson explained. “However, as left-handed signers are better at understanding fellow left-handers for two-handed signs, the findings suggest that how people produce their own signs plays a part in how quickly they can understand others' signing," Dr. Thompson and study co-author, Ph.D. student Freya Watkins concluded.

The study then noted another evidence that handedness could affect other things aside from being used in writing. A 2009 study also suggested that left-handed people perform poorly in the ability to read, write, copy, and recognize symbols. It was also said that lefties tend to be diagnosed with dyslexia and attention.