Measuring handedness: A validation study of Bishop's reaching card test

The aim of the study was the validation of Bishop's reaching card test (Bishop et al., 1996) in a French population. Annett's peg-moving test (1985) and the Purdue pegboard (Tiffin, 1948) were also used to assess manual performance. Subgroups of left- and right-handers were established according to manual preference as measured by Annett's questionnaire (1985). A sample of 260 adults was tested, including 158 self-professed right-handers, 77 self-professed left-handers, and 25 self-professed ambidextrous people. The three manual performance tests and the questionnaire presented good metric qualities (homogeneity, test-retest reliability). However the constitution of subgroups of laterality (in particular left-handers) as a function of manual preference could not be validated by classic tasks, or by Bishop's test, which is supposed to combine features of both preference and performance. Moreover the link between performance and preference was weak. Both evaluations should be used to produce a complete pattern of laterality for each participant.