TY - JOUR
T1 - Genetic and environmental structure of individual differences in hand, foot, and ear preferences
T2 - A twin study
AU - Suzuki, Kunitake
AU - Ando, Juko
N1 - Funding Information:
Address correspondence to: Kunitake Suzuki, Faculty of Human Sciences, Osaka University of Human Sciences, 1-12-13 Shouya, Settsu Osaka 566-0012, Japan. E-mail: suzuki@totcop.keio.ac.jp We are grateful to the twins who participated in the present study. We thank Drs Yamagata, Shikishima, Murayama, and Nonaka for useful comments. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) (21223002) by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
PY - 2014/1
Y1 - 2014/1
N2 - Recent studies with large sample size have reported moderate heritability of hand preference. However, little is known about genetic and environmental factors for lateral preference. We examined the genetic and environmental factors for hand, foot, and ear preferences using a twin design study. A lateral preference questionnaire was administered to twin participants (N=956). Phenotypic correlation matrices of lateral preferences were computed for monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs, and were subjected to Cholesky decomposition to compute additive genetic and unique environmental correlation matrices. Promax rotation factor analysis of each genetic and environmental correlation matrix yielded six genetic and four environmental factors. Factor-loading patterns for these factors indicated that hand and foot lateral activities were affected by different genetic factors. By contrast, each of the four environmental factors was mainly associated with hand, foot, or ear preference. These results suggest that the genetic structure for lateral preference may be more complex than the environmental structure. In particular, hand preference may be multidimensional in terms of genetic factors.
AB - Recent studies with large sample size have reported moderate heritability of hand preference. However, little is known about genetic and environmental factors for lateral preference. We examined the genetic and environmental factors for hand, foot, and ear preferences using a twin design study. A lateral preference questionnaire was administered to twin participants (N=956). Phenotypic correlation matrices of lateral preferences were computed for monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs, and were subjected to Cholesky decomposition to compute additive genetic and unique environmental correlation matrices. Promax rotation factor analysis of each genetic and environmental correlation matrix yielded six genetic and four environmental factors. Factor-loading patterns for these factors indicated that hand and foot lateral activities were affected by different genetic factors. By contrast, each of the four environmental factors was mainly associated with hand, foot, or ear preference. These results suggest that the genetic structure for lateral preference may be more complex than the environmental structure. In particular, hand preference may be multidimensional in terms of genetic factors.
KW - Ear preference
KW - Foot preference
KW - Genetic and environmental factors
KW - Hand preference
KW - Twin design
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U2 - 10.1080/1357650X.2013.790396
DO - 10.1080/1357650X.2013.790396
M3 - Article
C2 - 23634832
AN - SCOPUS:84887944074
SN - 1357-650X
VL - 19
SP - 113
EP - 128
JO - Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition
JF - Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition
IS - 1
ER -