Edinburgh Handedness Inventory

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Last Modified: January 01, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements a handedness survey based on the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971).

References

Oldfield, R.C. (1971). The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia, 9, 97-113.

Duration

1 minute

Overview

10* 5-point Likert choice questions that ask about handedness.
The response scale -2, -1-, 0, 1, 2 mimics the

• the last two questions from Oldfield (1971) were dropped from the default Inquisit implementation

Scoring

10 5-point Likert choice questions that ask about handedness.
The response scale is selected to mimic "++" for indicating a 'strong' hand preference
and "+" for a simple hand preference .
No preference (0) leads to adding a "+" to either handscore. (see Oldsfield, 1971, p.99/112)

Summary Data

File Name: edinburghhandednessinventory_summary.iqdat' (Inquisit Lab: one data file per participant)

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
ehiCountMissingItems The number of questions that have not been answered
by default settings, all questions are required to be answered. However, that setting can be changed.
If default setting is changed, the above variable can be used as a flag.
See Oldsfield (1971, P.99, P.112) For Scoring
leftScore The sum of all "+" for the left hand
Note
-a score of "-2" adds 2 to the number of "+" for the left hand
-a score of "-1" adds 1 to the number of "+" for the left hand
-a score of "0" adds 1 to the number of "+" for the left hand
rightScore The sum of all "+" for the right hand
Note
-a score of "2" adds 2 to the number of "+" for the right hand
-a score of "1" adds 1 to the number of "+" for the right hand
-a score of "0" adds 1 to the number of "+" for the right hand
ehiLQ The Laterality Quotient (= 100 * [(rightScore-leftScore)/(rightScore+leftScore)])
Range
-100 (strong left preference)
-50 (left preference)
0 (no preference)
+50 (right preference)
+100 (strong right preference)
+ individual responses to all 10 questions

Raw Data

File Name: edinburghhandednessinventory.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, session With the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values) for q1-q10
Scale: -2 (strong left preference) - +2 (strong right preference)
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)