Exploring Footedness, Throwing Arm, and Handedness as Predictors of Eyedness Using Cluster Analysis and Machine Learning: Implications for the Origins of Behavioural Asymmetries

Behavioural asymmetries displayed by individuals, such as hand preference and foot preference, tend to be lateralized in the same direction (left or right). This may be because their co-ordination conveys functional benefits for a variety of motor behaviours. To explore the potential functional relationship between key motor asymmetries, we examined whether footedness, handedness, or throwing arm was the strongest predictor of eyedness. Behavioural asymmetries were measured by self-report in 578 left-handed and 612 right-handed individuals. Cluster analysis of the asymmetries revealed four handedness groups: consistent right-handers, left-eyed right-handers, consistent left-handers, and inconsistent left-handers (who were left-handed but right-lateralized for footedness, throwing and eyedness). Supervised machine learning models showed the importance of footedness, in addition to handedness, in determining eyedness. In right-handers, handedness was the best predictor of eyedness, followed closely by footedness, and for left-handers it was footedness. Overall, predictors were more informative in predicting eyedness for individuals with consistent lateral preferences. Implications of the findings in relation to the origins and genetics of handedness and sports training are discussed. Findings are related to fighting theories of handedness and to bipedalism, which evolved after manual dexterity, and which may have led to some humans being right-lateralized for ballistic movements and left-lateralized for hand dexterity

The General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale (GAAIS): Confirmatory Validation and Associations with Personality, Corporate Distrust, and General Trust

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction on 14/06/2022, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2022.2085400Acceptance of Artificial Intelligence may be predicted by individual psychological correlates, examined here. Study 1 reports confirmatory validation of the General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale (GAAIS) following initial validation elsewhere. Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed the two-factor structure (Positive, Negative) and showed good convergent and divergent validity with a related scale. Study 2 tested whether psychological factors (Big Five personality traits, corporate distrust, and general trust) predicted attitudes towards AI. Introverts had more positive attitudes towards AI overall, likely because of algorithm appreciation. Conscientiousness and agreeableness were associated with forgiving attitudes towards negative aspects of AI. Higher corporate distrust led to negative attitudes towards AI overall, while higher general trust led to positive views of the benefits of AI. The dissociation between general trust and corporate distrust may reflect the public’s attributions of the benefits and drawbacks of AI. Results are discussed in relation to theory and prior findings

Challenges and Choices: Modelling New Zealand’s Long-term Fiscal Position

This working paper provides further detail on the modelling behind Challenges and Choices – New Zealand’s Long-Term Fiscal Statement, published on 29 October 2009. Building on the first Statement of 2006, we construct two main fiscal scenarios over a 40- year horizon. The historic trends scenario allows historic and current spending and revenue settings to interact with changing demography. The sustainable debt scenario applies a fiscal constraint on non-benefit spending so that Crown net debt follows the Government’s medium-term fiscal targets. The modelling innovations introduced this time do not alter the basic structure and principles of the Long-term Fiscal Model, but instead provide insights into government spending: public sector productivity growth and the growth of the basket of services each person receives. These innovations enable us to illustrate the effects of tradeoffs between broad spending categories in a constrained fiscal environment. In the 2009 Statement, these policy changes are combined into three possible scenarios for obtaining a sustainable fiscal position. The paper also illustrates the sensitivity of the fiscal position to small changes in the demographic, macroeconomic and fiscal modelling assumptions.Population, projections, social expenditure, fiscal costs, New Zealand

The effects of sex and handedness on masturbation laterality and other lateralised motor behaviours

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Laterality on 26/11/2021, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2021.2006211Masturbation is a common human behaviour. Compared to other unimanual behaviours it has unique properties, including increased sexual and emotional arousal, and privacy. Self-reported hand preference for masturbation was examined in 104 left-handed and 103 right-handed women, and 100 left-handed and 99 right-handed men. Handedness (modified Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, EHI), footedness, eyedness, and cheek kissing preferences were also measured. Seventy nine percent used their dominant hand (always/usually) for masturbation, but left-handers (71.5%) were less consistently lateralised to use their dominant hand than right-handers (86.5%). Hand preference for masturbation correlated more strongly with handedness (EHI), than with footedness, eyedness, or cheek preference. There was no difference in masturbation frequency between left and right-handers, but men masturbated more frequently than women, and more women (75%) than men (33%) masturbated with sex aids. For kissing the preferred cheek of an emotionally close person from the viewer’s perspective, left-handers showed a left-cheek preference, and right-handers a weaker right-cheek preference. The results suggest that hemispheric asymmetries in emotion do not influence hand preference for masturbation but may promote a leftward shift in cheek kissing. In all, masturbation is lateralised in a similar way to other manual motor behaviours in left-handed and right-handed men and women

Why Are Most Humans Right-Handed? The Modified Fighting Hypothesis

Humans show a population-level preference for using the right hand. The fighting hypothesis is an influential theory that suggests that left-handedness persists because its rarity provides a surprise advantage in fighting interactions, and that left-handedness is less frequent because it has a health cost. However, evidence for the health cost of left-handedness is unsubstantiated, leaving the greater frequency of right-handers unexplained. Research indicates that homicide may have been common in early hominins. We propose that the hand used to hold a weapon by early hominins could have influenced the outcome of a fight, due to the location of the heart and aorta. A left-handed unilateral grip exposes the more vulnerable left hemithorax towards an opponent, whereas a right-hand unilateral grip exposes the less vulnerable right hemithorax. Consequently, right-handed early ancestors, with a preference for using the right forelimb in combat, may have had a lower risk of a mortal wound, and a fighting advantage. This would explain their greater frequency. In accordance with the original fighting hypothesis, we also suggest that left-handed fighters have a surprise advantage when they are rare, explaining their persistence. We discuss evidence for the modified fighting hypothesis, its predictions, and ways to test the theory

Resilience and mental toughness as predictors of anxiety, depression, and mental well-being

To examine how strongly the attributes of resilience and mental toughness predicted levels of anxiety, depression, and mental well-being, a quantitative online survey of 281 adults was employed. The survey was conducted in the United Kingdom (April to June 2021) using opportunity sampling. Resilience, mental toughness, and mental well-being were measured by the 10-item Connor-Davidson resilience scale, the 10-item mental toughness questionnaire, and the 14-item Warwick-Edinburgh mental well-being scale, respectively. In addition, the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) measured anxiety and depression, and the patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) was used to measure depression. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyze which attribute was the strongest predictor of mental health. Mental toughness was found to be a significantly stronger predictor of well-being (β=0.54) than resilience (β=0.21), of anxiety (β=-0.70 versus 0.02, respectively), of HADS depression (β=-0.52 versus -0.15), and of PHQ-9 depression (β=-0.62 versus -0.09). We propose that mental toughness may predict well-being more strongly than resilience because it is a broader construct, incorporating proactive traits that enhance well-being. The findings suggest that training and interventions that enhance mental toughness in non-clinical populations may be more effective at promoting mental well-being and reducing anxiety and depression than those that enhance resilience. Further research is required to test these practical implications and to clarify why mental toughness is a stronger predictor than resilience for positive mental health

Looking behaviour and preference for artworks: The role of emotional valence and location

The position of an item influences its evaluation, with research consistently finding that items occupying central locations are preferred and have a higher subjective value. The current study investigated whether this centre-stage effect (CSE) is a result of bottom-up gaze allocation to the central item, and whether it is affected by item valence. Participants (n=50) were presented with three images of artistic paintings in a row and asked to choose the image they preferred. Eye movements were recorded for a subset of participants (n=22). On each trial the three artworks were either similar but different, or were identical and with positive valence, or were identical and with negative valence. The results showed a centre-stage effect, with artworks in the centre of the row preferred, but only when they were identical and of positive valence. Significantly greater gaze allocation to the central and left artwork was not mirrored by equivalent increases in preference choices. Regression analyses showed that when the artworks were positive and identical the participants’ last fixation predicted preference for the central art-work, whereas the fixation duration predicted preference if the images were different. Overall the result showed that item valence, rather than level of gaze allocation, influences the CSE, which is incompatible with the bottom-up gaze explanation. We propose that the centre stage heuristic, which specifies that the best items are in the middle, is able to explain these findings and the centre-stage effect

The enigma of facial asymmetry:is there a gender specific pattern of facedness?

Although facial symmetry correlates with facial attractiveness, human faces are often far from symmetrical with one side frequently being larger than the other (Kowner, 1998). Smith (2000) reported that male and female faces were asymmetrical in opposite directions, with males having a larger area on the left side compared to the right side, and females having a larger right side compared to the left side. The present study attempted to replicate and extend this finding. Two databases of facial images from Stirling and St Andrews Universities, consisting of 180 and 122 faces respectively, and a third set of 62 faces collected at Abertay University, were used to examine Smith's findings. Smith's unique method of calculating the size of each hemiface was applied to each set. For the Stirling and St Andrews sets a computer program did this automatically and for the Abertay set it was done manually. No significant overall effect of gender on facial area asymmetry was found. However, the St Andrews sample demonstrated a similar effect to that found by Smith, with females having a significantly larger mean area of right hemiface and males having a larger left hemiface. In addition, for the Abertay faces handedness had a significant effect on facial asymmetry with right-handers having a larger left side of the face. These findings give limited support for Smith's results but also suggest that finding such an asymmetry may depend on some as yet unidentified factors inherent in some methods of image collection

Shared meaning in representational and abstract visual art: an empirical study

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.A longstanding and important question is how meaning is generated by visual art. One view is that abstract art uses a universal language whereas representational art is tied to specific knowledge. This view predicts that meaning for abstract is shared across viewers to a greater extent than for representational art. This contrasts with a view of greater shared meaning for representational than abstract art, because of shared associations for the entities depicted in representational art, as supported by recent empirical findings. This study examined the contrasting predictions derived from these two views. 49 nonexpert adult participants wrote brief descriptions of meanings that they attributed to 20 abstract and 20 representational artworks, generating a corpus of 1918 texts. Computational analyses (semantic textual similarity, latent semantic analysis) and linguistic analysis (type-token ratio) provided triangulated quantitative data. Frequentist and Bayesian statistical analyses showed that meanings were shared to a somewhat greater extent for representational art, but that meanings for abstract artworks were also shared above baseline. Triangulated human and machine analyses of the texts showed core shared meanings for both art types, derived from literal and metaphoric interpretations of visual elements. The findings support the view that representational art elicits higher levels of shared meaning than abstract art. The empirical findings can be used to enhance theoretical and computational models of aesthetic evaluation, and the rigorous new methodologies developed can be deployed in many other contexts

Shared liking and association valence for representational art but not abstract art

This is the authors' accepted version of an article published in Journal of Vision, 2015. The article, together with supplementary information, is available at http://jov.arvojournals.org/Article.aspx?articleid=2278788We examined the finding that aesthetic evaluations are more similar across observers for representational images than for abstract images. It has been proposed that a difference in convergence of observers' tastes is due to differing levels of shared semantic associations (Vessel & Rubin, 2010). In Experiment 1, student participants rated 20 representational and 20 abstract artworks. We found that their judgments were more similar for representational than abstract artworks. In Experiment 2, we replicated this finding, and also found that valence ratings given to associations and meanings provided in response to the artworks converged more across observers for representational than for abstract art. Our empirical work provides insight into processes that may underlie the observation that taste for representational art is shared across individual observers, while taste for abstract art is more idiosyncratic