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Neuronal development
TINS -January 1983
37
Book Reviews
On the other hand... Lateral Preferences and Human Behavior
by Clare Porac and Stanley Coren, Springer-Verlag, 1981. DM52/$24.20 (xii + 283pages) ISBN 0 387 90596 0 This book is about human side preferences for hand, foot, eye and ear, not about cerebral laterality. It reviews the very considerable quantity of research data collected by the authors over the last 10 years, includes some previously unpublished material and has some useful summary tables of data collected by others on selected topics. The format of most chapters is to give a brief outline of the issues, conclude that no previous study has looked at the problem adequately, decide it was necessary for the authors to send out several thousand questionnaires, and analyse the returns, typically from about 25% of those sampled. The questionnaire asks four questions about hand preference, and three each for foot, eye and ear preference. The latter, which has been little researched previously, asks which ear would be used for the earphone of
a transistor radio, or to listen through a
closed door. The responses are then scored for side of preference, consistency or strength of preference irrespective of side, and for congruence between hand and foot etc. The various indexes derived are compared or correlated for an amazing number of characteristics, age, sex, family handedness, birth order, maternal age at birth, reading speed, cognitive test scores and proficiency at 15 sports from basket ball to volley ball. The authors have also examined over 10 000 works of art and found 1 180 depicting hand use, and analysed the proportion of right usage for distribution in time and geographical dispersion. Their industry has been prodigious. What emerges for all this effort? There are statistically significant differences to be found in the tables, but these depend more on sample size than on the size of the difference. What is to be made of correlations of 0.073 between hand preference and age, or - 0 . 0 5 5 between ear preference and age, though statistically significant at the 1% level?
A developmental banquet R e a d i n g s in D e v e l o p m e n t a l Neurobiology
edited by Paul H. Patterson and Dale Purves, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1982. $38.50 U.S.A.~S46.20 elsewhere (ix + 700 pages) 1SBN 0 879 69144 1 Neuronal Development
edited by Nicholas C. Spitzer, Plenum Press, 1982. $45. O0 (xxiii +424 pages) 1SBN 0 306 40956 9 S t u d i e s in D e v e l o p m e n t a l Neurobiology
edited by W. Maxwell Cowan, Oxford University Press, 1982. £30.00 (xv + 454pages) 1SBN 0 195 02927 5 The study of the developing nervous system is a subject which has probably passed the point at which specialists in widely separated parts of the field can regularly hope to encounter, let alone read, each other's
work. Readings in Developmental Neurobiology is a brave attempt to redress the balance by bringing together in 700 paperback pages a collection of key papers intended to cover the whole field of neural development, Despite the presence of Cajal glaring ominously from the back cover (together with, among others, Ross Harrison's far gentler profile), the book is almost exclusively a r6sum6 of recent work. The editors, who deserve our sympathy for a difficult task, have selected what they consider to be the important and informative papers, and grouped them to a familiar scheme. This scheme takes us from the early events of neurogenesis through the mysteries of cell death and synapse formation, and finally, by way of a considerable leap, to complete patterns of behaviour. Each of the thirteen sections on the way is prefaced by a short introduction which sets the chosen papers in the context of a particular field of research and provides a reading list. Armed with this material, the reader certainly has a fairly comprehensive and not
The book is written for the non-specialist and makes a valiant attempt to explain technicalities simply, including an appendix on elementary genetics. In theorizing about sidedness, the authors try to follow the implications of their findings, but allow themselves considerable speculative leeway. They conclude modestly that there is a lot they do not fully understand. There are weaknesses in the methodology and in a certain naivet~ of interpretation. Can conclusions be drawn about the population from questionnaire responses by 25% volunteer samples? Is the hand used for touching the nose expected to be relevant to the drawing hand of pre-school children ? If parents and children are more similar for strength of preference than for side, is it not that family members are more likely to imitate one another in putting 'both' responses on the questionnaire, than to imitate one another in using either hand for the actions concerned? Why are gene pair theories discussed under the heading 'Single-gene approaches'? If hand preferences are unrelated to differences in skill, unrelated to cerebral specialization for speech, and have no noteworthy genetic antecedents, as concluded here, they are not of much interest to this reviewer. MARIAN ANNEqq"
Principal Lecturer in Psychology, Coventry ( Lanchester) Polytechnic, Coventry ('VI 5FB, U.K.
too overwhelming survey of current neuroembryology and its major preoccupations, although he might just be forgiven for supposing that no one bothers to study the development ofbehaviour itself. Inevitably there are going to be doubts and quibbles about the final, limited selection of papers in the book (1 am sure the editors were plagued by them) and everyone will want to make their own additions and subtractions. 1 wondered for example why there was no mention of, let alone a representative paper from, the work on the reorganization of the intertectal projection during the development of the amphibian visual system. A far more serious criticism is that the introductory summaries - the major editorial contribution to the books - are not always clear and accurate in establishing a context for the reprints they precede. The thirteen prefaces have a powerful effect on the reader's thoughts by offering him a convenient structure of ideas within which to view the issues in neural development. The decision, for instance, to group theories of compartments and positional information with ideas about neuronal migration and its control, obscures the fact that there is a major question about the early spatial
37
Book Reviews
On the other hand... Lateral Preferences and Human Behavior
by Clare Porac and Stanley Coren, Springer-Verlag, 1981. DM52/$24.20 (xii + 283pages) ISBN 0 387 90596 0 This book is about human side preferences for hand, foot, eye and ear, not about cerebral laterality. It reviews the very considerable quantity of research data collected by the authors over the last 10 years, includes some previously unpublished material and has some useful summary tables of data collected by others on selected topics. The format of most chapters is to give a brief outline of the issues, conclude that no previous study has looked at the problem adequately, decide it was necessary for the authors to send out several thousand questionnaires, and analyse the returns, typically from about 25% of those sampled. The questionnaire asks four questions about hand preference, and three each for foot, eye and ear preference. The latter, which has been little researched previously, asks which ear would be used for the earphone of
a transistor radio, or to listen through a
closed door. The responses are then scored for side of preference, consistency or strength of preference irrespective of side, and for congruence between hand and foot etc. The various indexes derived are compared or correlated for an amazing number of characteristics, age, sex, family handedness, birth order, maternal age at birth, reading speed, cognitive test scores and proficiency at 15 sports from basket ball to volley ball. The authors have also examined over 10 000 works of art and found 1 180 depicting hand use, and analysed the proportion of right usage for distribution in time and geographical dispersion. Their industry has been prodigious. What emerges for all this effort? There are statistically significant differences to be found in the tables, but these depend more on sample size than on the size of the difference. What is to be made of correlations of 0.073 between hand preference and age, or - 0 . 0 5 5 between ear preference and age, though statistically significant at the 1% level?
A developmental banquet R e a d i n g s in D e v e l o p m e n t a l Neurobiology
edited by Paul H. Patterson and Dale Purves, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1982. $38.50 U.S.A.~S46.20 elsewhere (ix + 700 pages) 1SBN 0 879 69144 1 Neuronal Development
edited by Nicholas C. Spitzer, Plenum Press, 1982. $45. O0 (xxiii +424 pages) 1SBN 0 306 40956 9 S t u d i e s in D e v e l o p m e n t a l Neurobiology
edited by W. Maxwell Cowan, Oxford University Press, 1982. £30.00 (xv + 454pages) 1SBN 0 195 02927 5 The study of the developing nervous system is a subject which has probably passed the point at which specialists in widely separated parts of the field can regularly hope to encounter, let alone read, each other's
work. Readings in Developmental Neurobiology is a brave attempt to redress the balance by bringing together in 700 paperback pages a collection of key papers intended to cover the whole field of neural development, Despite the presence of Cajal glaring ominously from the back cover (together with, among others, Ross Harrison's far gentler profile), the book is almost exclusively a r6sum6 of recent work. The editors, who deserve our sympathy for a difficult task, have selected what they consider to be the important and informative papers, and grouped them to a familiar scheme. This scheme takes us from the early events of neurogenesis through the mysteries of cell death and synapse formation, and finally, by way of a considerable leap, to complete patterns of behaviour. Each of the thirteen sections on the way is prefaced by a short introduction which sets the chosen papers in the context of a particular field of research and provides a reading list. Armed with this material, the reader certainly has a fairly comprehensive and not
The book is written for the non-specialist and makes a valiant attempt to explain technicalities simply, including an appendix on elementary genetics. In theorizing about sidedness, the authors try to follow the implications of their findings, but allow themselves considerable speculative leeway. They conclude modestly that there is a lot they do not fully understand. There are weaknesses in the methodology and in a certain naivet~ of interpretation. Can conclusions be drawn about the population from questionnaire responses by 25% volunteer samples? Is the hand used for touching the nose expected to be relevant to the drawing hand of pre-school children ? If parents and children are more similar for strength of preference than for side, is it not that family members are more likely to imitate one another in putting 'both' responses on the questionnaire, than to imitate one another in using either hand for the actions concerned? Why are gene pair theories discussed under the heading 'Single-gene approaches'? If hand preferences are unrelated to differences in skill, unrelated to cerebral specialization for speech, and have no noteworthy genetic antecedents, as concluded here, they are not of much interest to this reviewer. MARIAN ANNEqq"
Principal Lecturer in Psychology, Coventry ( Lanchester) Polytechnic, Coventry ('VI 5FB, U.K.
too overwhelming survey of current neuroembryology and its major preoccupations, although he might just be forgiven for supposing that no one bothers to study the development ofbehaviour itself. Inevitably there are going to be doubts and quibbles about the final, limited selection of papers in the book (1 am sure the editors were plagued by them) and everyone will want to make their own additions and subtractions. 1 wondered for example why there was no mention of, let alone a representative paper from, the work on the reorganization of the intertectal projection during the development of the amphibian visual system. A far more serious criticism is that the introductory summaries - the major editorial contribution to the books - are not always clear and accurate in establishing a context for the reprints they precede. The thirteen prefaces have a powerful effect on the reader's thoughts by offering him a convenient structure of ideas within which to view the issues in neural development. The decision, for instance, to group theories of compartments and positional information with ideas about neuronal migration and its control, obscures the fact that there is a major question about the early spatial