Abstract
A questionnaire of laterality which contains forty items was given to 141 male and 73 female subjects who were high school, college or university students. Twenty six items asking hand preference were divided into four categories and tabulated respectively. The rate of left handed subjects for asymmetric movements with one hand (ex. writing letters) was smaller than the rate for symmetric movements with one hand (ex. drawing a picture). "Symmetric" means that movements by the right limb and by the left limb are symmetric with respect to plane. The rate for symmetric movements by one hand was smaller than the rate for asymmetric movements by both hands (ex. opening a lid of a bottle) when a functional hand was asked for. It was thought that the so-called dominant hand would play some part for fine adjustments of both-handed movements when the non-dominant hand was used as the functional hand. This might be a reason for increasing the rate of left hand preference in both-handed movements. Eight items asking foot preference were divided into two categories; one-footed movements and both-footed mevements. The foot functionally used was asked for in the both-footed movement items. It was defined as a actively moving foot throughout the movement or as a foot on which less weight was borne. The high degree of lateralization to the right was observed in kicking only. More than twenty percent of the subjects used the left foot as the functional foot except for kicking. Cross tabulations indicate that there are no remarkable relationships between the foot items. This tendency is the same between trunk turning items or eye items. The relationship between the hand preference and the foot preference was not clearly identified. The dominant foot in the functional use should be decided by the kicking foot. The dominant foot for exertion of muscle strength, however, should be decided by two items; the takeoff foot of a broad jump and that of a high jump. If both jumps are done by the same foot, the subject can be considered to have a constant preference in footedness as to the exertion of muscle strength. This concept of the dominant foot, however, would be different from the concept of the dominant hand, for the rate of binominal subjects in footedness was higher than the rate in handedness.