Who is a real Southpaw?

Abstract

Theories of embodied cognition posit that mental representations are partially formed by simulations of embodied experiences (Barsalou, 1999). The way we experience the world with our bodies influences our conceptualizations. People with different kinds of bodies experience the world differently. Casasanto (2009) termed the body specificity hypothesis and tested its effects on left- and right-handed individuals in a series of experiements. A 2010 study revealed that left-handed politicians gesture with their left hand while using linguistic phrases with positive-valence and vice versa. The current study attempted to look at this effect in sportspeople, particularly those who use their non-dominant hand more frequently. This 'practice effect' was seen to reduce the inflence of handedness in terms of gesturing.