HANDEDNESS FOR GESTURAL COMMUNICATION AND NON COMMUNICATIVE ACTIONS IN CHIMPANZEES AND BABOONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR LANGUAGE ORIGINS

摘要

Most humans show a left-hemispheric dominance for language functions(Knecht et al., 2000). Whereas such a left-lateralization has been historicallylinked to right handedness for manipulative actions, dominant use of the righthand is also observed for "language-related" gestures such as signing, pointingand manual movements when speaking (reviewed in: Hopkins et al., 2005),suggesting that left-lateralized language areas may underlie gesture production(Kimura, 1993).