Comments on: Taking my rightful place among bloggers on the left

By: TBinSTL

TBinSTL — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:33:28 +0000

I knew there was something “sinister” about you all…

By: Don

Don — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 07:11:07 +0000

Lefties have a reaction time advantage:

http://biology.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm#Hands

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:58:49 +0000

I’m pretty sure all the non-creative left handed folks were men.

By: JB

JB — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:15:43 +0000

Maybe being left handed just doesn’t matter very much. I’m sure if you examined the billions of right handed people you would find plenty of artists, creative types, multi-taskers. I’ve known bad left handed musicians. I’ve known good right handed ones. This whole handedness thing strikes me as being similar to astrology. One can always find a group of left handed people that share a certain trait and then use that trait to draw conclusions about left-handedness. However, if you studied every single lefty out of the hundreds of millions in the world I’m not sure it would be so easy to categorize them. Furthermore, if being left-handed was really a kind of evolutionary advantage then wouldn’t everyone be left handed? Who knows.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 08:38:06 +0000

Or maybe only left handed genius only applies to the women folk. As per my thesis.

I can read in “chunks” as they say, but only if I concentrate very hard. Which is quite draining. My regular speed increases if the text is in a very short block. If a line of text is too long across the screen, I tend to read serially across very slow. Because of the speed of my eyes. So I can perhaps, emulate the block reading style, by applied serial processing. Because I have to look at each word in series, it is easier for me if the word wrap ends after a few words instead of after 15. Even then, I tend to skip a lot of descriptions because they don’t interest me. I make up for what I miss, through memory ability. When rereading a book, I will find that I was a bit hasty and missed some concepts or words or descriptions. So I have to rely upon memory, so that I can look back and think on the words that I have read, while taking in new words.

I cannot divide a block of text into 4 sections, and then start reading all 4 at the same time. That would not work, because I have to piece the words together serially. One at a time, from beginning to end. I can skip a few words and a few spots in place, but not that far. The more I remember, the farther I can skip. The more words I remember, the less time I take to read them. Because I can remember what word it is from how it sounds like and how it is written, from looking at the first 3 letters, and then just glancing to see how long it is, that memory ability allows me to emulate some aspects of speed reading.

Combined with additional memory pneumonics and defocusing the eyes to take in more than one line of text at a time, gives me a very poor imitation of hyper speed reading. I cannot run it at full speed without extreme mental fatigue. So I clock it down.

Of course, large, hard to spell, or very unfamiliar words slow me down while reading. Both mentally, as well as visual memory wise.

It’s like foreign language translators. Sometimes they have to wait until the end of the sentence for the verb, to be able to translate it into an English sentence. I don’t know the exact mechanics of how Left handed people read though, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t limited by being in series.

By: Robin Munn

Robin Munn — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 02:04:01 +0000

Just like Bookworm, I too read in “chunks”, and am one of the fastest readers I know. (Some of my friends are in the same reading-speed range, and we’ve never actually raced, so I have to say “one of”). One time when I was in high school someone loaned me Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death. I handed it back a couple of hours later. My friend couldn’t believe I’d actually read the whole thing that fast, so he grilled me on the content of some of the later chapters — and I answered in ways that showed I’d not only remembered what I’d read, but actually thought about it in the process.

In addition, I’m a very multi-tasking person. Right now, I have two different tasks I’m working on simultaneously, plus I’m reading and commenting on blogs. I switch back and forth between them a lot.

In fact, I’m an almost perfect illustration of that Wikipedia article. Except for one little problem… I’m right-handed. (Very much so, in fact).

Heh. I’m the anecdotal counterexample!

By: Cappy

Cappy — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:47:25 +0000

I was originally ambidexterous, but switched to the left for writing when forced to make a choice. My handwritten papers had a neat part down the middle before I switched! Choosing which way to throw a ball was really hard!

By: Bookworm

Bookworm — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:39:35 +0000

It’s interesting about the popcorn, because that’s more or less how I read. That is, I look at chunks of words, rather than reading one word at a time. I’ve always assumed that this “chunky” way of reading leaves me missing about 15% of content, but long ago reading tests always had me showing 100% comprehension. Either I’m getting it all, or my brain automatically sifts wheat from chaff. As it is, I’m the fastest reader I know, and I guess now I know why.

By: TomTom

TomTom — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:16:39 +0000

There’s a book, published about 10yrs ago: The Left Handed Syndrome, if I remember right. Among its points: Lefties are disproportionately higher in 1)prison populations (are we entitled to civil rights agitation?); 2) Dispro. higher in architecture (= better spatial orientation); 3) Handedness data are generally not available–major league baseball had the best data base– and when the book was written, no Leftie ballplayer had been known to survive to 80 in the recorded history of the game. Accidental death (e.g., by use of a righthanded circular saw) was postulated as only a partial explanation); 4)premature babies have an increased frequency of lefthandedness (so it is a developmental deficit).

I grew up when there were only righthanded armrests on desks. We suffered in silence, and adapted.

By: bird dog

bird dog — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 17:46:04 +0000

Count me as another leftie blogger. And definitely brain-damaged and over-sexed. The one theory I have read is that it is due to very mild hypoxia during birth.