Edinburgh Handedness Inventory

Background

The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) is a standard questionnaire used to measure an individual's hand preference in everyday tasks based on self-reports. Richard Charles Oldfield designed the survey in 1971 to create a universal standard for the assessment of hand preference that was not gender dependent nor dependent on socioeconomic status. Oldfield originally studied left-handed musicians. To find them efficiently, he set out to build a brief, reliable screening tool that would allow the classification of handedness not just as a binary preference but on a quantitative scale that was also able to capture ambidexterity and varying degrees of hand preference. The resulting survey asks participants to rate their preferred hand on a 5-point Likert scale for 10 activities such as writing, drawing, brushing teeth or using a broom. A 'Laterality Quotient (LQ)' is calculated based on the reported responses.

A four-question short version of the inventory, the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory - Short Form (EDI-SF), was proposed by Jaimie F. Veale in 2014 that simplifies instructions and response options. Despite its brevity, Veale reports high reliability and correlations with the 10-item inventory. Both EHI versions are available in the Millisecond task library.

Procedure

Participants are asked to rate their handedness preference on a 5-point scale for 10 questions.

What it Measures

The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) measures hand preference

Psychological domains

• Brain Lateralization: The principle that specific cognitive functions are dominant in either the left or right hemisphere of the brain
• Motor Lateralization: Hemispheric asymmetry in motor skills

Main Performance Metrics

• Laterality Quotient: The Lateralization Quotient ranging from -100 (extreme preference for left hand) to 100 (extreme preference for right hand)

Psychiatric Conditions

The EHI is used for handedness assessment with the following patient groups

• Stroke Patients
• Epilepsy and Pre-Surgical Patients
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• Schizophrenia and Psychiatric Populations

Test Variations

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Edinburgh Handedness Inventory.

---

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

Veale, J.F. (2014). Edinburgh Handedness Inventory - Short Form: A revised version based on confirmatory factor analysis. Laterality, 19, 164-177.