Do left- and right-handed people use different hands when retelling positive or negative stories?

Details

Researchers investigated whether handedness was linked to how people watched and produced gestures accompanying positive or negative content. Participants watched videos in which the speaker's face was not visible while their eye movements were tracked, then retold each story.

Looking preferences did not clearly differ between left- and right-handed participants. There was a difference related to emotional content, however: participants spent more time looking toward the viewer's right—the actor's left—for positive information, and toward the viewer's left—the actor's right—for negative information.

During retelling, hand use differed by gesture type. For rhythmic gestures that mark the flow of speech, participants used their dominant hand. For gestures that depict the story's content, right-handed participants used their right hand more, while left-handed participants used each hand equally.

Overall, the study found no clear link between handedness and emotional content in either watching or producing gestures. The authors suggest that links between the body's preferred side and emotional meaning may not extend to conversation. That interpretation remains tentative: the task involved watching videos and retelling stories, not free-flowing conversation, and the abstract provides neither the sample size nor estimates of uncertainty.