Handedness

In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to and causing it to be stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjectively preferred, is called the non-dominant hand. In a study from 1975 on 7,688 children in US grades 1–6, left handers comprised 9.6% of the sample, with 10.5% of male children and 8.7% of female children being left-handed. Overall, around 90% of people are right-handed. Handedness is often defined by one's writing hand. It is fairly common for people to prefer to do a particular task with a particular hand. Mixed-handed people change hand preference depending on the task.