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The Effect of Handedness on Mental Arithmetic: A Longitudinal Large-Scale Investigation Through Smart Mobile Devices

Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition

August 2022
12(2)

DOI:10.1037/mac0000047

Authors:

Valeria Edelsztein

University of Buenos Aires

General Audience Summary Researchers have tried to understand the set of cognitive and noncognitive skills involved in mathematical ability because of both its primary need in multiple situations of daily life and its unavoidable requirement for successfully pursuing certain careers. Certain brain functions, such as manual control (handedness) or speech production, are known to be controlled or influenced more by one cerebral hemisphere than the other (hemispheric lateralization). This hemispheric specialization would provide an evolutionary advantage, while conversely a weak lateralization could be associated with a delay in development. In particular, although many studies have explored the link between mathematical ability and hand preference, the relation between these two traits remains highly controversial. Moreover, the statement has been made that since these effects are subtle, their detection requires large-scale samples. Consistent with the aforementioned context, we have analyzed the longitudinal performance of more than 15,000 right-handed, left-handed, and ambidextrous individuals in single-digit and multidigit sums and products performed through an application for smart mobile devices. All our results unanimously evidenced that no significant differences exist between left- and right-handers in the speed to solve the proposed arithmetic tasks. We could observe, however, that nonlateralized (ambidextrous) users took longer to solve the tasks than lateralized individuals, with all these behaviors being consistent with the aforementioned theoretical framework. The results also revealed that these differences in speed are accentuated in advanced stages of training and in more complex operations.

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EMPIRICAL ARTICLE

The Effect of Handedness on Mental Arithmetic: A Longitudinal

Large-Scale Investigation Through Smart Mobile Devices

Federico Lagares

1, 2

, Valeria Edelsztein

3, 4, 5

, Gustavo Parisi

1, 2, 3

, and Andrés A. Rieznik

3, 4

Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina

Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Departamento de Ciencias Biolo´gicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina

Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientíﬁcas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina

Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional (INCyT-INECO), Buenos Aires, Argentina

Centro de Investigacio´n en Psicología y Psicopedagogía, Universidad Cato´lica, Argentina

The proposal has been made that a weak lateralization of the human brain may be associated with a

developmental delay. We studied whether this hypothesis extends to the domain of simple and complex

arithmetics when tasks are performed through an educational application for smart mobile devices. We

comparatively analyzed through linear mixed-effects models the times of more than 3,500,000 responses

to these types of problems performed by more than 15,000 right-handed, left-handed, and ambidextrous

individuals who played through an application speciﬁcally designed to learn mental arithmetic. All of our

results unanimously evidenced no differences in response times between left- and right- handers and

higher time values for nonlateralized users than lateralized individuals. Our results support the hypothesis

tested and also show that these effects of time delay are accentuated with high levels of training and in

more complex operations. We share the data for future research.

General Audience Summary

Researchers have tried to understand the set of cognitive and noncognitive skills involved in

mathematical ability because of both its primary need in multiple situations of daily life and its

unavoidable requirement for successfully pursuing certain careers. Certain brain functions, such as

manual control (handedness) or speech production, are known to be controlled or inﬂuenced more by

one cerebral hemisphere than the other (hemispheric lateralization). This hemispheric specialization

would provide an evolutionary advantage, while conversely a weak lateralization could be associated

with a delay in development. In particular, although many studies have explored the link between

mathematical ability and hand preference, the relation between these two traits remains highly

controversial. Moreover, the statement has been made that since these effects are subtle, their detection

requires large-scale samples. Consistent with the aforementioned context, we have analyzed the

longitudinal performance of more than 15,000 right-handed, left-handed, and ambidextrous individuals

in single-digit and multidigit sums and products performed through an application for smart mobile

devices. All our results unanimously evidenced that no signiﬁcant differences exist between left- and

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

This article was published Online First August 8, 2022.

Federico Lagares https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2346-2991

Valeria Edelsztein https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6739-1825

The authors are grateful to Antonio Lagares Sánchez for his generous and

stimulating discussions, to Andrés Lagares Marro´n for his valuable help with

data formatting and R programming, and to María Victoria Fasano for her

assistance in statistics. The authors also want to thank Federico Zimmerman,

leader of Moravec App, the Erix Team, the members of “El Gato y La Caja,”

Mariano Sigman, and all those who contribute to the app development

and encourage thousands of individuals to use the app. Valeria Edelsztein,

Gustavo Parisi, and Andrés A. Rieznik are investigators from National

Scientiﬁc and Technological Research Council (CONICET). FedericoLagares

was supported by a doctoral fellowship from CONICET. Donald F. Haggerty,

a retired academic career investigator and native English speaker, edited

the ﬁnal version of the article. This research received no speciﬁc grant from

any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-proﬁt sectors.

The authors have no conﬂicts of interest to declare.

The data are available for download at https://github.com/federicolagares/

Data-paper-Lagares-et-al.-JARMAC. Data were analysed using the R

software.

Federico Lagares played an equal role in data curation, formal analysis,

investigation, software, visualization, writing of original draft, and writing of

review and editing. Valeria Edelsztein played an equal role in conceptualiza-

tion, formal analysis, investigation, visualization, and writing of original draft.

Gustavo Parisi played an equal role in conceptualization, data curation, formal

analysis, investigation, software, supervision, visualization, writing of original

draft, andwriting of review and editing. Andrés A. Rieznik played a lead role in

methodology and project administration, and an equal role in conceptualiza-

tion, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, software, supervision,

visualization, writing of original draft, and writing of review and editing.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Federico Lagares, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Departamento de

Ciencias Biolo´gicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, calle 47 y 115,

CP1900, La Plata, Argentina. Email: ﬂagares@quimica.unlp.edu.ar

Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition

ISSN: 2211-3681 https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000047

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The Effect of Handedness on Mental Arithmetic: A Longitudinal Large-Scale Investigation Through Smart Mobile Devices

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