Scrutable

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:36 am

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:19 am

I once overheard a woman telling people she had special left-handed knitting needles. I wondered if she'd been conned into buying something that doesn't exist. Did any of the lefties here find it harder to learn to knit (assuming any of you do?)

I once taught a left-handed woman to crochet. That was interesting as I had to adjust my brain to her holding the hook in the other hand. The hook is the same though.

My mum who, bless her, was so determined not to force me into being right-handed that she probably made me more left-handed than I otherwise would have been, tried to teach me to knit left-handed. We both ended up terminally confused so she just taught me to knit right-handed instead, which I then picked up instantly and never looked back. I taught myself to crochet from a book and just automatically did it right-handed because it was easier to copy the pictures that way.

I have no idea wtf left-handed knitting needles might be like so I suspect she was either joking or had been conned. There are sometimes things which seem not to be handed but where a tweak does make them work better for left-handers - like fountain pen nibs - but I am really struggling to imagine anything that you could do to knitting needles that would be in any way helpful. I have googled and cannot find such things, although it's possible there might be some buried among all the "how to knit left-handed" pages.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:30 am

It was a "thing" when I was doing my teaching diploma that it was wrong to teach a manual skill to someone facing you, because if they copy you as seen, they will be doing it as a mirror image. Generally I tried to teach side by side. Perhaps I should have tried left handers opposite and right handers next to me.

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:36 am

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:19 am

I once overheard a woman telling people she had special left-handed knitting needles. I wondered if she'd been conned into buying something that doesn't exist. Did any of the lefties here find it harder to learn to knit (assuming any of you do?)

I once taught a left-handed woman to crochet. That was interesting as I had to adjust my brain to her holding the hook in the other hand. The hook is the same though.

My mum who, bless her, was so determined not to force me into being right-handed that she probably made me more left-handed than I otherwise would have been, tried to teach me to knit left-handed. We both ended up terminally confused so she just taught me to knit right-handed instead, which I then picked up instantly and never looked back. I taught myself to crochet from a book and just automatically did it right-handed because it was easier to copy the pictures that way.

I have no idea wtf left-handed knitting needles might be like so I suspect she was either joking or had been conned. There are sometimes things which seem not to be handed but where a tweak does make them work better for left-handers - like fountain pen nibs - but I am really struggling to imagine anything that you could do to knitting needles that would be in any way helpful. I have googled and cannot find such things, although it's possible there might be some buried among all the "how to knit left-handed" pages.

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:19 am

I once overheard a woman telling people she had special left-handed knitting needles. I wondered if she'd been conned into buying something that doesn't exist.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:08 am

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:19 am

I once overheard a woman telling people she had special left-handed knitting needles. I wondered if she'd been conned into buying something that doesn't exist.

Was it almost 3 weeks ago that you heard her, or an integer number of years before? That might explain it.

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:04 am

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:36 am

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:19 am

I once overheard a woman telling people she had special left-handed knitting needles. I wondered if she'd been conned into buying something that doesn't exist. Did any of the lefties here find it harder to learn to knit (assuming any of you do?)

I once taught a left-handed woman to crochet. That was interesting as I had to adjust my brain to her holding the hook in the other hand. The hook is the same though.

My mum who, bless her, was so determined not to force me into being right-handed that she probably made me more left-handed than I otherwise would have been, tried to teach me to knit left-handed. We both ended up terminally confused so she just taught me to knit right-handed instead, which I then picked up instantly and never looked back. I taught myself to crochet from a book and just automatically did it right-handed because it was easier to copy the pictures that way.

I have no idea wtf left-handed knitting needles might be like so I suspect she was either joking or had been conned. There are sometimes things which seem not to be handed but where a tweak does make them work better for left-handers - like fountain pen nibs - but I am really struggling to imagine anything that you could do to knitting needles that would be in any way helpful. I have googled and cannot find such things, although it's possible there might be some buried among all the "how to knit left-handed" pages.

There is no way that something which is essentially a straight rod with a pointy end could be handed.

My brother is right handed in everything except cricket batting where he is a leftie.

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:39 am

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:04 am

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:36 am

My mum who, bless her, was so determined not to force me into being right-handed that she probably made me more left-handed than I otherwise would have been, tried to teach me to knit left-handed. We both ended up terminally confused so she just taught me to knit right-handed instead, which I then picked up instantly and never looked back. I taught myself to crochet from a book and just automatically did it right-handed because it was easier to copy the pictures that way.

I have no idea wtf left-handed knitting needles might be like so I suspect she was either joking or had been conned. There are sometimes things which seem not to be handed but where a tweak does make them work better for left-handers - like fountain pen nibs - but I am really struggling to imagine anything that you could do to knitting needles that would be in any way helpful. I have googled and cannot find such things, although it's possible there might be some buried among all the "how to knit left-handed" pages.

There is no way that something which is essentially a straight rod with a pointy end could be handed.

My brother is right handed in everything except cricket batting where he is a leftie.

I did consider the possibility that it might be like a fountain pen nib though - they're completely symmetrical so you might think there's nothing to change but because of the different way a left-hander uses one*, a left-handed one is actually curved. But try as I might, I could not imagine how a left-hander might knit differently that would make any change whatsoever to a knitting needle of any use. For one thing, you're constantly swapping the needles between hands anyway, so anything that you did change would have to work both ways round.

*pushing it across the page rather than pulling

Aoui wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 2:56 pm

So I tried with better headphones and while not doing chores and found that I still heard the left side first and then was interrupted by the right side midway through, but I could understand the left ear if I concentrated on not paying attention to the right ear. I got the idea that if I concentrated on the right ear, I could have gotten those just fine, but what I couldn't do was switch back and forth. I also have adhd so attention issues may be involved here. I don't know how I'd have done if they'd actually played the words at the same time...

In the early 1960s, Doreen Kimura used dichotic listening tests to draw conclusions about lateral asymmetry of auditory processing in the brain. She demonstrated, for example, that healthy participants have a right-ear superiority for the reception of verbal stimuli, and left-ear superiority for the perception of melodies. From that study, and others studies using neurological patients with brain lesions, she concluded that there is a predominance of the left hemisphere for speech perception, and a predominance of the right hemisphere for melodic perception.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Donald Shankweiler and Michael Studdert-Kennedy of Haskins Laboratories used a dichotic listening technique (presenting different nonsense syllables) to demonstrate the dissociation of phonetic (speech) and auditory (nonspeech) perception by finding that phonetic structure devoid of meaning is an integral part of language and is typically processed in the left cerebral hemisphere A dichotic listening performance advantage for one ear is interpreted as indicating a processing advantage in the contralateral hemisphere. In another example, Sidtis (1981) found that healthy adults have a left-ear advantage on a dichotic pitch recognition experiment. He interpreted this result as indicating right-hemisphere dominance for pitch discrimination.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:22 pm

So it seems that your left ear 'hears' first, but your right ear 'hears louder'. What happens if you put the headphones on backwards, is it the same, but with the 'other' words getting picked out?

Aoui wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:51 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:22 pm

So it seems that your left ear 'hears' first, but your right ear 'hears louder'. What happens if you put the headphones on backwards, is it the same, but with the 'other' words getting picked out?

I just tried it with the good headphones on backwards and I was completely confused. The right is louder and the left isn't as far ahead and maybe not ahead at all. So I put them on the right way again and they were still almost the same. How truly odd. It was so unbelievably different when I heard it earlier and I know it's not the headphones because I used two different types earlier. I wonder how I'd have experienced it if I had listened again and hadn't been shown that they are actually said at the same time. My husband listened and said they are said at exactly the same time. My brain seems to be a bit confuzzled....

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:22 pm

So it seems that your left ear 'hears' first, but your right ear 'hears louder'.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:30 am

We had a salesman trying to sell us ambidextrous scissors once. He could not be persuaded that there could be no such thing.

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:29 am

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:30 am

We had a salesman trying to sell us ambidextrous scissors once. He could not be persuaded that there could be no such thing.

Theoretically, there can be amidextrous scissors, but I don't know if you can buy them. The Wikipedia article on scissors has a section which mentions one type: Scissors#Right-handed_and_left-handed_scissors, and the other that I can think of is a bit less convenient and relies on how some scissors pivot around a but and bolt. In pinciple, it would be possible to make a pair such that you could undo the nut and bolt and reassemble the two parts the opposite way around. This would then cut using the opposite edges of the blades, so would require very careful design to make it cut effectively.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:28 pm

Some interesting details in regard to the findings of dichotic listening
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichotic_listening

In the early 1960s, Doreen Kimura used dichotic listening tests to draw conclusions about lateral asymmetry of auditory processing in the brain. She demonstrated, for example, that healthy participants have a right-ear superiority for the reception of verbal stimuli, and left-ear superiority for the perception of melodies. From that study, and others studies using neurological patients with brain lesions, she concluded that there is a predominance of the left hemisphere for speech perception, and a predominance of the right hemisphere for melodic perception.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Donald Shankweiler and Michael Studdert-Kennedy of Haskins Laboratories used a dichotic listening technique (presenting different nonsense syllables) to demonstrate the dissociation of phonetic (speech) and auditory (nonspeech) perception by finding that phonetic structure devoid of meaning is an integral part of language and is typically processed in the left cerebral hemisphere A dichotic listening performance advantage for one ear is interpreted as indicating a processing advantage in the contralateral hemisphere. In another example, Sidtis (1981) found that healthy adults have a left-ear advantage on a dichotic pitch recognition experiment. He interpreted this result as indicating right-hemisphere dominance for pitch discrimination.

I'm more convinced that we're not a typical bunch of people

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 22, 2021 6:24 am

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:29 am

In pinciple, it would be possible to make a pair such that you could undo the nut and bolt and reassemble the two parts the opposite way around. This would then cut using the opposite edges of the blades, so would require very careful design to make it cut effectively.

Like this? https://www.collectorsweekly.com/storie ... sors--1881

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:14 am

Actually, no. That's a third way that I hadn't thought of. It cuts keeping the same faces of the blades touching. What I was thinking of would swap faces as it swapped handedness, so what used to be the outside of the scissors becomes the inside.

jimbob wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:15 am

My Victorinox scissors on my Swiss army knife are pretty good with either hand. Which is useful for me as I cut my fingernails with it.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:47 am

Likewise. I do find them less controlled cutting the right hand nails left-to-right than the mirror image on the other hand (though it's hard to be sure quite why). It occurred to me I could hold my right hand palm up and bend my fingers then I could cut them the opposite way across but that seems to be more awkward still.

jimbob wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:18 pm

In normal life I can hear sounds and even words with my left ear, but it takes so much more processing effort that I actually will hold a phone to my right ear by my left hand and take notes with my right hand if I need to.