Laterality on the tapping test among legal offenders

Abstract

Abstract In an effort to replicate a previous finding, a sample of delinquents was examined and found to be, as expected, more often left‐handed than would be anticipated within the general population. However, on a finger‐tapping test, the left‐handers performed unexpectedly faster than right‐handers. This data does not support the hypothesis that delinquents, on the average, suffer left‐hemisphere cerebral weakness. An alternate “imbalance”; hypothesis was supported by the finding that 23% of the subjects exhibited deviant lateralization, half too slight, half too great. The degree of laterality, then, as well as its direction, may prove to be an important variable in reconciling inconsistencies between studies of laterality and of the Tapping Test.