10/14/99

Status Report

Operation: Little Sister and South Paw Ma

Hypothesis

Left-handed females are better at solving word puzzles than right-handed females. Background

The hand you use determines which side of the brain you are more likely to use. Someone who is dominantly left-handed would more likely process information in the right hemisphere of the brain. Someone who is right-handed would be more likely to process information in the left hemisphere of the brain. Bach side of the brain controls certain functions. The right cerebral hemisphere is dominate in the visual activities such as: recognizing shapes, reading maps, and drawing. The left cerebral hemisphere is dominate in handling logical analysis, numbers, and recognition of musical notes.

We believe that left-handed females would be better at solving word puzzles because of experiences we have had with them. They have an easier time of solving the puzzles and seem to enjoy the task more than right-handed females. This relates to information we have read in the book (Psychology, by Laura 'ma a Karen Huang) that explains how right brained thinkers recognize how elements fit together as a whole. They get the "big picture" more readily because they can visualize the entire word in their minds. We chose females because we didn't want the gender differences between male and females to influence the results of the experiment.

Procedures

We are going to do case studies with elements of natural observation (because we live with them) on two left-handed females, one older and one younger. We will compare this background information with two right-handed females, one older the other younger. Experiments will also be performed to determine left-handed female word puzzles solving skills as opposed to right-handed females' abilities in this area.

I performed the first experiment on my left-handed mother (one researcher's mom). This was done to determine the difficulty of the word puzzles given. There were two kinds: one was a set of ten, four letter words that are spelled backwards, ex: DISK, was printed on a flash card as KSID. I held up each card and had her say what she thought the word was. I recorded her score and the time it took her to complete the task. I performed the same experiment using a set of ten words with eight letters. Afterwards, I had her state the difficulty level of the puzzles on a scale of 1 to 5 with one being very easy and five being very hard.

The second experiment done involved the use of pictures that must be put together to form a word. Again, I recorded her score and the time it took her to solve all ten picture word puzzles. The data is as follows:

(tables below didn't scan in well, but you get the point)

Backward Words

Score Time Difficulty (Scale: 1-5)

level 1 8/10 1 mm 30 sec 3

evel 2 - 8110 4 min 10 sec 5

Picture Words

Score Time Difficulty

10/10 iminiSsec 2

It took some time to develop the word puzzles for the experiment; so we do not have any data from the other subjects to compare with yet. This was more of a "test drive" to determine the usability of these puzzles. Both require the use of mental visual imagery in order to solve them. I have noted that for future experiments, the TV should be off so that the subject can concentrate. This is especially true for the eight letter backward words. I also noticed that my mother would say the letters out loud and close her eyes. After the experiment, I asked her why she did this. She said that saying the letters out loud helped her to visualize the word in her mind, then she -would read it off from this mental picture. This form of visual thinking is characteristic of right brained individuals. If she had requested to write the letters down on paper to see the word, this would have been a example of left brain thinking.

What's Next

We will continue to record our observations of the subjects and will perform more experiments to compare data with that of right handed females. For the backward word game, it may be interesting to have it divided into two parts: The first using only auditory cues to solve them. In the second part, the subject will be allowed to write the letters down. We would then record which handed female did better in each part. This will help us determine if she is a auditory-sequential thinker (characteristic of left brain function) or a visual spatial thinker -(characteristic of right brain function). Natural observation will be used to determine the handedness of each subject. We will observe which hand is used more frequently for such things as : opening a door, grabbing at large and small objects, throwing a ball, picking a nose, and of course writing.

Being left-handed and therefore constantly processing information with the right side of the brain would give these females an advantage over right-handed females who process information with the left brain. After we have accumulated our data from the experiments and noted all observations for our case studies, the information gathered should support our hypothesis.

Questions

How can we create a test that would measure the word puzzle solving skills of both right and left-handed individuals fairly?

Four females are enough for a case study; but should we include more females in the experiments to see patterns, even though we would not have enough background information to determine their handedness? What other variables do you think we should consider that may influence our results?