Across time and place, right hand preference has been the norm, but what is the precise prevalence of left- and right-handedness? Frequency of left-handedness has shaped and underpinned different fields of research, from cognitive neuroscience to human evolution, but reliable distributional estimates are still lacking. While hundreds of empirical studies have assessed handedness, a large-scale, comprehensive review of the prevalence of handedness and the factors that moderate it, is currently missing. Here, we report 5 meta-analyses on hand preference for different manual tasks and show that left-handedness prevalence lies between 9.3% (using the most stringent criterion of left-handedness) to 18.1% (using the most lenient criterion of nonright-handedness), with the best overall estimate being 10.6% (10.4% when excluding studies assessing elite athletes' handedness). Handedness variability depends on (a) study characteristics, namely year of publication and ways to measure and classify handedness, and (b) participant characteristics, namely sex and ancestry. Our analysis identifies the role of moderators that require taking into account in future studies on handedness and hemispheric asymmetries. We argue that the same evolutionary mechanisms should apply across geographical regions to maintain the roughly 1:10 ratio, while cultural factors, such as pressure against left-hand use, moderate the magnitude of the prevalence of left-handedness. Although handedness appears as a straightforward trait, there is no universal agreement on how to assess it. Therefore, we urge researchers to fully report study and participant characteristics as well as the detailed procedure by which handedness was assessed and make raw data publicly available. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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人类惯用手：荟萃分析。

在不同的时间和地点，右手偏好一直是常态，但左利手和右手利手的准确流行程度是多少？左撇子的出现频率塑造并支撑了从认知神经科学到人类进化的不同研究领域，但仍然缺乏可靠的分布估计。虽然数百项实证研究已经评估了惯用手，但目前还缺少对惯用手的流行情况及其调节因素进行大规模、全面的审查。在这里，我们报告了 5 项关于不同体力任务的手部偏好的荟萃分析，结果显示左利手患病率在 9.3%（使用最严格的左利手标准）到 18.1%（使用最宽松的非右手标准）之间。 ），最佳总体估计为 10.6%（排除评估精英运动员用手习惯的研究后为 10.4%）。惯用手的变异性取决于 (a) 研究特征，即出版年份以及测量和分类惯用手的方法，以及 (b) 参与者特征，即性别和血统。我们的分析确定了调节因素的作用，在未来的利手习惯和半球不对称研究中需要考虑这些调节因素。我们认为，相同的进化机制应该适用于各个地理区域，以维持大约 1:10 的比例，而文化因素，例如反对左撇子使用的压力，可以缓和左撇子的流行程度。尽管惯用手似乎是一个简单的特征，但对于如何评估它还没有达成普遍共识。因此，我们敦促研究人员充分报告研究和参与者的特征以及评估惯用手的详细程序，并公开原始数据。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2020 APA，保留所有权利）。