Something Sinister about the Left

"Boy," Hal said, "That's a great sentence out of context:"

Chicks prefer to use their left eye to search for food and right eye to watch for predators overhead.

"Actual chickens, I assume they mean," I said.

Yep. Actual chickens. It turns out that a bunch of different research is finding that animal brains have a left/right bias for fight or flight responses (left brain), versus comfort and nourishment responses (right brain), but not only that, the differentiation in function is actually reflected in bodily gestures and responses. Such as dogs tails being biased to wag to the right when they are happy, and to the left, when they are fearful. And left-handed chimpanzees are apparently less confident and more fearful than right-handed chimpanzees.

I find all this fascinating because it suggests that all the disparate human biases against things left-handed may, at bottom, have a neurological basis. (Which is not, I hasten to point out, the same thing as being justified.)

You can read more about it here at the New York Times, if you hurry before it goes behind the subscription firewall. Though if I understand the wiring of brains and sight correctly, I think the writer must have got the chick's eyes switched.

Also, can anybody remind me who on my FL posted a link to the article by a parent with an adoptive daughter, writing about orphanage experience and attachment disorder? It was somebody who also has an adoptive daughter from China, but on my FL, that isn't much of a narrowing criterion. Anyway, I wanted to bookmark the article, if I can find it again...