The relation of the preferences of hand, foot and eye with the facial asymmetries of young adults

Although the human body develops with bilateral symmetry, precise symmetry is seen rarely due to genetic and environmental effects. Facial asymmetry is very common in the average population and takes more attention as the severity of the asymmetry worsens. About two-thirds of humans have a slightly larger left craniofacial region. It has been thought that this kind of asymmetry is the consequence of affected left face half by left hemisphere dominance which shows itself as the right handedness and right footedness. Although lots of studies have been made about the relationship of handedness with facial asymmetry, there is no study showing the relation of handedness, footedness, and eyedness with facial asymmetries. In the study, 131 students of KTU Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Dentistry were evaluated who were 73 male(%55.7) and 58 female (%44.3) with ages of 22.19±1.64 and 22.32±1.57 respectively. Students have been photographed in five planes in a preset manner, and 25 distances (50 in total) and 14 angles (28 in total) calculated with TpsDig2 software on every right and left hemifaces of the subjects. While handedness of the students were assessed on the "Edinburgh Handedness Inventory", footedness were set with a revised version of the "Waterloo Footedness Questionnaire". Eyedness of the students were assessed with a hole-in-the-card test and finger-pointing test. The relationship of the students' handedness, footedness, and eyedness with the averages of distance and angle measurements obtained from students' hemifaces had been investigated statistically. It has been shown that due to the opposite side of the hemispheric representation of handedness and footedness, hemifaces of the students opposite to the preference site have narrowed in anteroposterior planes while enlarged in lateral (coronal) planes. Although the hemispheric representation of the eyedness is controversial, in this study we have found results support that eyedness was represented on the opposite hemisphere which shows itself with worsening or improving the facial asymmetries.