Being
right-handed is much more common than being left-handed and the way we are
wired means that the left hemisphere of the brain is involved with control of
the right hand. The left side of the brain is associated with communication
such as speech.
We
learn to speak when we’re small, but before that we point and grunt. And the
way we fond parents respond, mere gestures are a very effective way of
communicating. Meunier et al wondered if the use of gestures preceded speech in
an evolutionary path and if that was facilitated by the predominance of
right-handedness in our species (1).
The
result of that thought was a study of other primates to see if they also were
right-handed in terms of gestures but not necessarily in terms of getting hold
of the object that they were indicating.
They chose a group of 12 baboons to test this with and at the same time
tried a similar test with 10 infants at 14, 17, and 20 months old.
The
tendency of baboons and babies was to point at what they wanted with the right
hand, but when they were able to pick it up, they chose the hand nearest to the
prize.
The
conclusion was that the split function of the brain – lateralization – with the
left hemisphere being our speech section, in combination with the tendency to
be right-handed, led in evolutionary terms to us evolving past gestures through
to making the interminable stump speeches full of meaningless promises favored by our politicians.
I
should also note that our speech centers are also capable of producing glorious
musical performances and perhaps that ameliorates the other nonsense.
