Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1379–1386

Laterality effects on motor awareness

Elena Daprati∗ , Angela Sirigu
Institut des Sciences Cognitives, 67 Bd Pinel, 69675 Bron, France
Received 26 January 2000; accepted 28 September 2001

Abstract
The ability to perceive self-produced movements and to correctly attribute an action to its proper agent is a natural task and a basic
requirement to human social communication. Recent experiments suggest that this apparently simple phenomenon is related to the mech-
anisms of motor production, raising the question whether recognition of self-produced movement is affected by asymmetries similar to
those present in motor skills. In this study, right- and left-handed subjects decided whether a moving hand presented on a screen was the
image of their own hand or of that of another person. Two experimental conditions were tested: either subjects saw their own moving
hand (subject condition) or they were shown the experimenter’s hand pantomiming their movement (experimenter condition); a glove
masked morphological differences between the two hands. Verbal responses and response times were analysed. Results showed that all
subjects were more accurate in recognising their preferred hand with respect to their non-preferred hand. Right-handers responded faster
than left-handers did, the latter group being especially slowed down in the experimenter condition. On the contrary, in the right-handers
group, response times did not differ among conditions. The present data indicate that the ability to recognise self-generated movements
is affected by motor dominance, thus suggesting that conscious knowledge of self-produced movements is closely related to the motor
system. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Motor consciousness; Handedness; Motor skills; Manual asymmetry

1. Introduction An alternative interpretation suggests that hand preference

Over 90% of humans are right-handed, that is they show
a clear preference for the use of the right hand in the
execution of skilled movements. Although this notion is
well-established and seems to be rather consistent across
cultures and over time [3,11], the neurobiological correlate
of handedness is still a matter of debate. Neuropsychological
evidence suggests that this behavioural lateralisation can be
related to an asymmetry of the cortical areas controlling the
cognitive–motor requirements of skilled movements [14].
As a general rule, movement of one limb is controlled by
the motor cortex of the contralateral hemisphere: however,
at least in right-handers, a dominant role of the left hemi-
sphere for praxis functions has frequently been invoked.
For instance, ipsilateral deficits in tasks involving complex
cognitive–motor abilities have been described only follow-
ing left (but not right) hemisphere damage [14]. Moreover,
ideomotor apraxia—i.e. a specific impairment in the per-
formance of complex gestures in the absence of elementary
sensory/motor deficits—is known to occur more frequently
after left than after right hemisphere damage [12].
∗Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-437911227; fax: +33-437911210.
E-mail address: daprati@isc.cnrs.fr (E. Daprati).
could be reflected by functional or structural asymmetries of
the primary motor cortex and descending pathways, either
in isolation or in association with those suggested for higher
order areas. In right-handers, a comparison of the relative
degree of activation between the two hemispheres following
ipsilateral movements reveals greater activation in the left
than in the right hemisphere [19], specifically in the region
of the motor cortex [28]. Interestingly, this pattern seems
to be reversed in left-handers. In a PET study, Kawashima
et al. [18] found that the right premotor cortex was acti-
vated by both contralateral and ipsilateral finger movements,
whereas left premotor cortex, as well as primary motor cor-
tex and supplementary motor areas, were activated only by
contralateral movements.
In a recent fMRI study, Dassonville et al. [6] have shown
that the volume of activation in contralateral motor cortex
is greater during movements of the preferred hand in com-
parison to movements of the non-preferred hand in both
right- and left-handed subjects. A similar observation
was obtained using whole-head magnetoencephalography
(MEG): Volkmann et al. [30] measured in vivo the hand rep-
resentation area in right- and left-handed subjects and found
a significant expansion of hand motor cortex in the hemi-
sphere corresponding to the preferred hand. The authors

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1380 E. Daprati, A. Sirigu / Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1379–1386
suggested that such an enlargement could provide the neural
substrate for the more efficient processing of motor output
of the preferred hand. A recent study using transcranial mag-
netic stimulation (TMS) supports this hypothesis [29]: mea-
surable differences related to handedness have been found in
the excitability of the motor system. In particular, the thresh-
old for eliciting motor evoked potentials (MEPs) varies
according to hand dominance: lower TMS thresholds are re-
quired for eliciting MEPs in the hemisphere contralateral to
the preferred hand. In other words, lower TMS thresholds for
one hand are associated with greater dexterity of that hand.
Although the matter of motor asymmetry and hemispheric
lateralisation has been extensively debated, few studies have
investigated this problem at the level of internal motor repre-
sentations. A recent paper provided some evidence that the
principle of contralateral control holds also for mentally sim-
ulated movements [23]. Split-brain patients were required
to judge handedness of line drawings depicting either right
or left hands. Accuracy in the responses was higher when
the hand presented was contralateral to the perceiving hemi-
sphere (e.g. a right hand presented to the isolated left hemi-
sphere), whereas patients performed at chance level when the
stimulus was ipsilateral to the perceiving hemisphere. Data
collected in healthy subjects [16] further confirmed that an
advantage exists for each hemisphere when mental simula-
tion involves movements of the contralateral hand compared
to the ipsilateral one. Normal subjects required less time to
select whether an overhand or an underhand grip was more
appropriate in order to grasp a manipulandum when the latter
was presented to the hemisphere contralateral to the desig-
nated response hand. When a similar paradigm was admin-
istered to a right-handed commissurotomised patient [17], a
dissociation between the two hemispheres emerged. The left
(motor dominant) hemisphere was successful in represent-
ing with a high degree of accuracy both distal movements
of the contralateral hand (i.e. grasping) and proximal move-
ments of the ipsilateral hand (i.e. reaching). On the contrary,
the right hemisphere only appeared capable of representing
distal movements of the contralateral hand with modest
accuracy, suggesting that processes needed to select upper
limb movements may be lateralised to the left hemisphere.
The presence of motor asymmetries in both real and men-
tally simulated movements emerges even more directly in
a recent study by Maruff et al. [20]. Fifty subjects (includ-
ing right- and left-handers) were required to either execute
or mentally simulate a visually guided pointing task [26].
Results showed a significant speed reduction when subjects
either used or imagined to use their non-dominant hand, thus
supporting the hypothesis that real and imagined movements
are controlled by similar constraints. However, asymmetries
in both speed and error rate were greater for imagined move-
ments as compared to executed movements. This latter result
is consistent with recent neuroimaging [13,15,25] and neuro-
physiological [24] data suggesting that the link between exe-
cution and mental representation of movement is very tight,
also extending to movement observation. A “mirror” system
has been first described in the monkey’s ventral area 6, where
neurones responding to both execution and observation of a
given action have been found [24]. In humans, although it
has been shown that the two systems, motor execution and
motor representation, only partially overlap [10], the fact that
similar cortical areas are activated while representing one’s
own action and observing someone else’s action implies that
the same representation may be shared among individuals.
Self-consciousness might rely on the possibility to discrim-
inate between central representations activated from within
(self-generated movement) from central representations ac-
tivated from external agents (movement observation).
Such a close link between execution and mental rep-
resentation of movement raises the question whether the
perception of self-performed actions can be influenced by
motor asymmetries. Recent experiments suggest that this
apparently simple phenomenon relies on a complex mech-
anism, which requires an efficient on-line control of motor
output [27] as well as the ability to update the body schema
in response to limb movements [5]. To our knowledge, no
study has yet addressed the question whether the capacity to
recognise self-produced movements is subject to the same
asymmetries present in motor skills.
Sirigu et al. [27] required apraxic patients suffering from
left parietal lesion and age-matched normal controls to
identify the origin of a moving hand in an ambiguous situ-
ation. Both the preferred and the non-preferred hand were
tested. The results suggested that the ability to correctly
attribute a movement to its proper agent is reduced when
subjects are asked to recognise the non-preferred hand. In
the present study, we further explore this issue in the at-
tempt to assess whether the ability to recognise one’s own
movement is subject to asymmetries related to motor dex-
terity. Toward this end, both right- and left-handed subjects
are required to execute hand gestures with their preferred
and non-preferred hand and to monitor their execution on
a TV screen. According to the experimental condition, the
image of the subjects’ hand can be substituted by that of the
examiner’s, thus creating an ambiguous environment. The
subjects’ goal is to decide whether the presented hand be-
longs to themselves or not. Indeed, if the ability to recognise
one’s own movement is subject to the same asymmetries
present in motor skills, recognition of the non-preferred
hand should lead to an increased number of errors and/or
to longer decision time in both right- and left-handers.
2. Methods
2.1. Subjects
Eighteen subjects participated to the experiment: nine of
them (three men and six women, mean age 23.1 years, range
21–27 years) were right-handers and nine were left-handers
(two men and seven women, mean age 23.1 years, range
18–38 years). Mean laterality coefficient, as assessed by the
 E. Daprati, A. Sirigu / Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1379–1386
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the apparatus: details in the text.
Edinburgh Inventory [22], was +0.87 for the right-handers
and −0.75 for the left-handers. None of the subjects suffered
from neurological or psychiatric pathologies. Vision was
normal or corrected to normal. Subjects were naive as to the
purpose of the experiment.
2.2. Apparatus
A detailed description of the apparatus is given elsewhere
[4].
Fig. 1 shows a schematic representation of the system:
subjects sat in front of a table on which a mirror was placed
(M), at about 35 cm from the subject’s frontal plane and
inclined by 30◦ on the vertical plane. Subjects positioned
their hand below the mirror, on a comfortable support. A
camera (C1) filmed the subjects’ hand and a closed circuit
television system reproduced it in order to make it visible to
the subjects on the mirror surface. Since no time delay was
present, when the hand was placed below the mirror the im-
pression was that of seeing it through a window glass. An
identical set-up was located nearby and collected images of
the experimenter’s hand (C2). During the experiment, either
the image of the subject’s hand or that of the experimenter’s
could be presented to the subject. Identical white gloves cov-
ered both hands, in order to eliminate morphological differ-
ences. In order to get a correct spatial and temporal match
between the subject’s and the experimenter’s hand, three
TV screens were available in the experimenter’s cabin. The
monitors presented the images of both the subject’s and the
experimenter’s hand, either individually or superimposed.
In order to synchronise movement onset, both subject and
experimenter started to move in response to one acoustic
signal. All detectable differences in movement onset were
controlled and trials in which timing or spatial matching was
imprecise were repeated at the end of the session.
Two experimenters were sitting in the cabin: alternately,
one acted as mime, while the other monitored task per-
formance. One experimenter was strongly right-handed
1381
(laterality coefficient 1.00), the other was almost ambidex-
trous (laterality coefficient 0.30).
2.3. Procedure
Before the experimental session, subjects were shown the
gestures they were to perform. Subjects started from the
fist-closed posture and moved their hand on the horizontal
plane, palm facing the table. Gestures required extension of
one or more digits, namely (1) thumb, (2) index, (3) thumb
and index, (4) all fingers. The task for the subjects was to
produce one gesture in response to a verbal command and to
monitor its execution on the screen in front of them. Subjects
knew in advance that in half of the trials the hand displayed
would be their own one (subject condition), whereas in the
other half, it would be that of another person (experimenter
condition). In the latter condition, the examiner’s hand al-
ways performed the same movement that was required to the
subject. Subjects knew in advance that the two conditions
would be presented in random order. Indeed, the subjects’
goal was to recognise whether the hand on the screen was
their own or not.
More details on the procedure are given in Fig. 2.
Twenty-four trials were run for both the subject condition
and the experimenter condition (six trials for each gesture
type). For each subject, both the right and the left hand were
tested in separate blocks: order of hand use was counterbal-
anced among subjects.
Verbal responses were recorded: the trial was considered
successful when subjects responded “yes” to the image
of their own hand and “no” to that of the experimenter’s
hand. A voice key system recorded response times. Re-
sponse times shorter than 100 ms or longer than 4000 ms
were considered errors and the corresponding trials were
repeated at the end of the session. Due to the dichotomous
nature of the analysed variable, the number of correct re-
sponses was submitted to non-parameteric tests: namely
Mann–Whitney U-test for between groups comparisons and
1382 E. Daprati, A. Sirigu / Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1379–1386

Fig. 2. Experimental procedure. From top to bottom: time = time-scale, screen = events appearing on the screen located in front of the subject,
task = instructions given to subjects. “Instruction” refers to the verbal command specifying the type of gesture subjects were required to perform.
“Movement” refers to the motor phase, elicited by an acoustic signal (beep). Subjects were allowed an interval of 2 s in order to perform the gesture
before vision of the hand was prevented. “Response” refers to the period of 4 s in which subjects were expected to give their answer.

Wilcoxon matched-pairs-tests for within groups compar-
isons. Response times were analysed by means of three-way
ANOVA, group (right-handers versus left-handers), man-
ual preference (preferred versus non-preferred hand) and
experimental condition (subject’s versus experimenter’s
hand) being the main factors. Newman–Keuls-test was
used for post-hoc analysis on response times. Whenever
required, a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons
was applied.
3. Results
All subjects well understood the task and errors in the
procedure, i.e. execution of a movement different from that
requested, anticipation or delay in starting the movement or
giving the response were extremely rare (0.31% of trials)
and were randomly distributed among conditions.
3.1. Correct responses
Independently from their handedness, the 18 subjects
produced significantly more correct responses when asked
to recognise their preferred hand with respect to the
non-preferred hand (correct responses: preferred 38.5, S.D.
3.9, non-preferred 36.2, S.D. 4.0; T = 20.0, Z = 2.85,
P = 0.004). This was true for both the condition in which
subjects saw their own hand (subject condition: T = 10.5,
Z = 2.4, P = 0.01) and for the condition in which they saw
the experimenter’s hand (experimenter condition: T = 27.5,
Z = 2.3, P = 0.02, see Table 1 for numerical values).
All subjects produced more correct responses in the sub-
ject condition, i.e. when they saw their own hand (subject
condition 45.0, S.D. 2.2, experimenter condition 29.7, S.D.
7.7; T = 0.0000001, Z = 3.62, P < 0.0003). In other
words, errors increased whenever ambiguity was introduced.
A closer look to the number of correct responses given
by each group of subjects showed that the advantage
for the preferred hand was significant only within the
right-handers group (correct responses: preferred 39.2, S.D.
3.3, non-preferred 36.7, S.D. 3.6; T = 0.00001, Z = 2.665,
P < 0.01). The difference was not significant in the case of
left-handers (preferred 37.8, S.D. 4.5, non-preferred 35.7,
S.D. 4.5; P = 0.1, Fig. 3 left panel). A direct comparison
between the two groups failed to reach significance. As
previously stated, all subjects produced more correct re-
sponses when they saw their own hand compared to when
they saw the experimenter’s hand. The decrease in the
number of correct responses in the latter condition was sig-
nificant for both right-handed subjects (experimenter con-
dition 31.0, S.D. 7.4, subject condition 44.9, S.D. 2.3; T =
0.00001, Z = 2.520, P < 0.01) and left-handed subjects

Table 1
Mean number of correct responses (S.D.) and mean response times (S.D.) for right- and left-handed subjects, and for the entire group
Preferred hand Non-Preferred hand

Subject’s hand Experimenter’s hand Subject’s hand Experimenter’s hand

Mean number of correct responses (S.D.) (maximum of correct responses = 24)

Right-handers 23.2 (0.8) 16.0 (3.7) 21.7 (1.6) 15.0 (3.8)
Left-handers 22.9 (0.9) 14.9 (4.4) 22.2 (1.9) 13.4 (5.0)
All subjects 23.0 (0.9) 15.4 (4.0) 21.9 (1.7) 14.2 (4.4)
Mean response times (S.D.) in ms
Right-handers 630.4 (153.1) 609.0 (160.1) 607.4 (211.9) 608.2 (183.5)
Left-handers 676.5 (264.1) 742.1 (301.7) 747.5 (192.8) 802.9 (224.9)
All subjects 653.4 (210.7) 675.5 (244.1) 677.5 (209.4) 705.5 (222.9)
 E. Daprati, A. Sirigu / Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1379–1386 1383

Fig. 3. Effect of manual preference on number of correct responses (left panel) and on response times (right panel) given by each group of subjects.
Preferred hand (black bars) refers to the right hand for right-handed subjects and to the left hand for left-handed subjects. The opposite for non-preferred
hand (dotted bars). Error bars indicate standard errors (preferred hand: continuous line, non-preferred hand: dotted line).

(experimenter condition 28.3, S.D. 8.3, subject condition
45.1, S.D. 2.2; T = 0.0001, Z = 2.665, P < 0.01).
3.2. Response times
When response times are considered, it clearly emerges
from Fig. 3 (right panel) that left-handed subjects were
on average slower than right-handed subjects (left-handers
742.2 ms, S.D. 219.9; right-handers 613.8 ms, S.D. 141.7).
Although no main effect of group was found, a significant
interaction emerged between group and experimental con-
dition (F(1, 16) = 4.515, P < 0.0495). Post-hoc analysis
showed that left-handers were slower than right-handers in
both the subject and the experimenter conditions (subject
condition, right-handers: 618.9 ms, S.D. 150.4; left-handers:
712.0 ms, S.D. 198.7, P < 0.001; experimenter condition,
right-handers: 608.6 ms, S.D. 135.4; left-handers: 772.5 ms,
S.D. 247.9, P < 0.0002). Moreover, a consistent time in-
crease between the “easier” subject condition (712.0 ms,
S.D. 198.7) and the more ambiguous experimenter condition
(772.5 ms, S.D. 247.9) was present only in the left-handers
group. No difference in mean response times was found
among right-handers (Fig. 3 right panel, Table 1).
Further analyses were run in order to test any evidence
for a speed–accuracy trade-off in subjects’ performance.
Response times for correct responses were compared to re-
sponse times for incorrect responses by means of a four-way
ANOVA. Group (right-handers versus left-handers) was
the between groups factor whereas manual preference
(preferred versus non-preferred hand), experimental condi-
tion (subjects versus experimenter’s hand) and response ac-
curacy (correct versus incorrect answer) were within groups
factors. No difference between the two groups was found. A
main effect of response accuracy emerged (F(1, 7) = 10.18,
P < 0.015), showing that average response times were
significantly slower when they led to incorrect (858.4 ms,
S.D. 189.4) compared to correct responses (675.4 ms, S.D.
189.4). The interaction between experimental condition and
accuracy was also significant (F(1, 7) = 5.71, P < 0.0482):
namely, response latency significantly increased (926.3 ms,
S.D. 258.4) when subjects saw their own hand but were
mistaken in recognising it (i.e. they responded “no”).
Summing up, the main results of the present study were
the following: (1) independently from their handedness, all
subjects provided more correct responses when they were
asked to recognise their preferred hand. (2) All subjects
produced more correct responses when they saw their own
hand compared to when they saw the experimenter’s hand,
suggesting that errors increased when ambiguity was intro-
duced. (3) Left-handers were on average slower in providing
their response than were right-handed subjects. (4) Longer
response latencies were not associated to correct responses.
4. Discussion
Most people have a preferred hand, whose skilfulness
largely exceeds that of the so-called non-preferred hand.
Asymmetries related to motor dominance have been de-
1384 E. Daprati, A. Sirigu / Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1379–1386
scribed to affect imagined movements [20]. The present
study was designed in order to assess whether this notion ex-
tends to the capacity to recognise self-produced movements,
or in broader terms, to self-awareness in motor acts. Right
and left-handed healthy subjects were required to produce a
hand gesture in an ambiguous environment, in which direct
vision of their moving limb was prevented and visual feed-
back provided on a TV screen could be manipulated. Sub-
jects were asked to decide whether they were the agents of
the presented movements. Results showed that the number
of correct responses given by the subjects varied according
to the hand used. Both right- and left-handers were more
accurate when asked to identify their preferred hand with
respect to their non-preferred hand, suggesting the presence
of a close link between motor dominance and motor aware-
ness. We will define here motor awareness as the ability of
an individual to both perceive and visually recognise a given
movement as his/her own. In other words, as the knowledge
enabling subjects to state that they are the source and the
owner of a presented gesture. This ability necessarily comes
into play in the task used in the present experiment.
As previously reported [27], the accomplishment of the
present task likely requires several steps. First, in addition
to intentional information, subjects must be able to form
a reliable representation of the movement they are about
to execute. More precisely, subjects should be able to pre-
dict the proprioceptive and visual consequences of their
act and to fit actual incoming kinaesthetic information into
their predictive model. As a result, they will “know” which
movement they are executing and whether it matches their
intentions. Secondly, this information is compared to the
one provided by the visual system, thus making possible to
decide whether the movement shown to the subjects belongs
to themselves or not. Once the result of this comparison is
made conscious, a response can be produced.
We recently provided some evidence that brain damage
can disrupt this motor recognition mechanism at the level of
action representation, thus preventing subjects from having
a reliable image of the movement they are executing. More
particularly, in apraxic patients suffering from left parietal
lesion [27], the ability to either form or update a reliable
predictive model of the executed gestures is impaired. Ac-
cordingly, when attempting to reproduce a complex hand
posture, these patients fail in their execution as well as in
recognising their own movement.
The present results on healthy subjects support the hy-
pothesis that the ability to visually recognise a movement as
one’s own is subject to asymmetries similar to those present
in motor skills. It is unlikely that our results may be ac-
counted for by the possible time delay intervening between
movement executed and movement observed by the sub-
jects. Indeed, had this been the cue to the correct answer, it
should have produced an equal number of correct responses
for the preferred and non-preferred hand.
The increase in the number of correct responses after pre-
sentation of the dominant hand could be accounted for by at
least two non-conflicting interpretations. Either subjects are
more trained to attend to their preferred hand during praxis,
or self-awareness of motor outputs is richer for the more
skilled hand. According to the first interpretation, we can
speculate that the better performance for the dominant hand
could be a secondary effect of familiarity, subjects having
acquired major expertise in visually controlling movements
of their preferred hand. On the other hand, it could not be
excluded that, when attempting to recognise their own hand,
subjects made use of an internal representation of their dom-
inant hand that is “motor” in nature. Evidence has been
provided that motor habits can influence our perception of
the visual world. Objects that can be grasped and manipu-
lated appear to be processed also in relation to the manual
dominance of the subject, thus suggesting the involvement
of motor processes (namely motor imagery) in non-motor
functions [7]. In the present task, subjects could have found
recognition of the preferred hand easier either due to a more
familiar visual image or to a richer visual–motor knowledge
of their more skilled hand. We favour this second hypothesis,
which points to a close relation between the system respon-
sible for motor consciousness and the structures involved in
motor representation and movement production.
What kinds of mechanisms allow the interplay between
consciousness of movement and motor production? Manual
preference has an anatomic and functional counterpart in
the expansion of hand motor cortex for the preferred hand
[1,30] and this phenomenon has been invoked to explain the
more efficient processing of the corresponding motor out-
put. Efficiency could improve thanks to an increase in the
number of neural elements and/or tighter connectivity: mon-
key data show both an enlargement and an increased degree
of spatial complexity of motor areas opposite to the pre-
ferred hand [21]. At the cortical level, this modification may
account for better interaction between neuronal assemblies
representing muscles that are used in close spatial or tem-
poral contiguity. Analysis of cytoarchitectonic differences
between the two hemispheres [1] have shown an increased
neuropil compartment in BA 4 in the dominant hemisphere,
supporting the hypothesis that hand preference is associated
with increased connectivity. At the behavioural level, such
improved interaction may be responsible for a more skilled
motor repertoire of the preferred hand. In agreement with
the above data, the present results further indicate that not
only motor production but also motor awareness can ben-
efit from the anatomical and physiological pattern linked
to hand preference. Handedness asymmetries seem, thus,
to extend beyond the level of primary motor functions and
likely emerge also in those structures which are involved in
cognitive–motor operations.
Two more points emerged from the results of the present
experiment. First, the difference between preferred and
non-preferred hand was less evident in the left-handers
group. Second, left-handers were on average slower in
giving their responses than right-handers. The former re-
sult could be accounted for by the fact that left-handers
 E. Daprati, A. Sirigu / Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1379–1386
are more heterogeneous and less markedly lateralised than
right-handers: for instance, on preference measures, i.e.
hand or foot usage, left-handers show larger variability
and lower lateralisation than right-handed subjects [2]. In
addition, in hand selection responses to unimanual tasks,
left-handers do not respond with the preferred hand as con-
sistently as do right-handers [8]. This reduced lateralisation
emerged also in the sample examined in the present experi-
ment: only one of our left-handed subjects scored between
−0.90 and −1.00 at the Edinburgh Inventory, whereas five
out of nine right-handed subjects showed such an extreme
score. Indeed the absolute scores at the handedness test
differed significantly between the two groups (U = 18.00,
Z = 1.987, P = 0.046) Accordingly, we can assume that
in our sample the reduced asymmetry in hand motor skills
present in the left-handers group could be responsible for
the reduced handedness effect. Both results are consistent
with a previous report by Gentilucci et al. [9] in which
right- and left-handed subjects were required to recog-
nise whether a static hand holding an object, with either
a congruent or incongruent type of grip, corresponded to
the picture of a right or a left hand. Right-handers were
faster in judging right hands, whereas no difference was
found between preferred and non-preferred hand in the
left-handed subjects. Moreover, left-handers were on av-
erage slower than right-handers. A similar pattern is also
found in another previous report. When asked to decide
whether a rotating screwdriver was either screwing or un-
screwing [7], healthy subjects required longer response
times in those conditions implying motor imagery of the
non-dominant hand. Moreover, left-handers were overall
slower than right-handers. As suggested by Gentilucci et al.
[9], the behaviour of left-handers could be explained by the
fact that, when required to covertly represent movement
of their own hands, they likely rely on a “pictorial” (i.e.
more observation-based) rather than “pragmatic” (i.e. motor
experience-based) image of their dominant hand. In agree-
ment with this hypothesis, we can assume here that, on
the one hand, left-handers are less affected by asymmetries
related to motor dexterity. On the other hand, they likely
need further steps in the analysis of the presented image,
such as a transition between a visual and a motor-based
representation, in order to access those subtle kinematics
cues which are required to recognise one’s own movement.
In conclusion, we think that the present data demonstrate
how the ability to recognise self-generated movements can
be affected by motor dominance, suggesting that the system
responsible for motor awareness is profoundly nested within
the mechanisms controlling motor production.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Virginie Czernecki for her pre-
cious help in collecting the data. This work was supported
by CNRS.
1385
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