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From: greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Handedness
Message-ID: <784@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 25 Apr 89 22:25:00 GMT
References: <0ejKI2d3Uw1010VXzqU@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <1256@mmm.UUCP>
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Reply-To: greid@adobe.COM (Glenn Reid)
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In article <1256@mmm.UUCP> cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) writes:
>In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes:
>> did humans have any need for the abstract concepts of left and right?
>
>I'm not at all convinced that the concept of left and right is very abstract.
>
>This suggests an interesting experiment... using various animals,
>test to see which ones can be trained to distinguish between left
>and right.  If a dog can understand the concept, it's probably not too
>abstract.

I taught my dog to shake hands with me.  The command is "shake."  At
first, she would give me either paw, or both paws, but after a little
bit of training consistently gives me her right paw.

I don't know if this illustrates an understanding of right versus left.
More likely it is positive- and negative-reinforcement at work.  But
hell, I'll bet that's how people learn left from right, too.  I know
lots of people who still don't know the difference without thinking
about it.

Glenn