Matthews started researching several different sports and found different types of handedness in each.

马修斯接着研究了若干种不同的体育，从中发现了不同类型的用手习惯。

By the way, he uses 'handedness' to refer to the dominant side for feet and eyes as well as hands.

顺便要说一下，马修斯所说的“用手习惯”不仅仅意味着使用某侧手的偏好，还包括偏好用某一侧脚和眼睛的习惯。

Anyway, his team measured the hand, feet and eyes of 2,611 players and found that there were really three main types of laterality: mixed - you work equally well on both sides - both hand and eye; single - you tend to favour one side but both hand and eye favour the same side; and cross-laterality - a player's hands and eyes favour only one side but they are opposite sides.

他的团队对2611名运动员的手、脚和眼的左右偏好进行了研究，发现有三种主要的类型：第一类是两侧均衡型的，两侧的肢体和眼睛使用情况差不多；第二类是单侧型的，某一侧的肢体和眼睛使用比另一侧多；还有交叉型的，也就是肢体和眼睛的使用分别偏好不同的一侧。

Let's start with hockey.

我们先拿冰球来举例吧。

Matthews found that it was best to be mixed-handed - this is because a hockey stick must be deployed in two directions - it would be a drawback to have hand or eye favouring one side.

马修斯发现在这项运动中用手均衡的运动员有优势，原因是冰球杆需要向两个方向挥杆，如果手眼的使用偏向某一侧的话会比较吃亏。

An interesting finding is that mixed-handed hockey players were significantly more confident than their single-handed counterparts.

一个有意思的发现是，用手均衡的冰球运动员的自信心要远远高于单边用手的选手。

Things are slightly different in racket sports like tennis.

而在使用球拍的运动中，比如网球，情况就有些不一样了。

Here the important thing is to have the dominant hand and eye on the one side.

在这类运动中，最重要的是主力手和主力眼在同一侧。

This means that there is a bigger area of vision on the side where most of the action occurs.

这意味着在做动作最多的一侧有更大的视野。

If a player is cross lateral the racket is invisible from the dominant eye for much of the swing, it means that they can only make corrections much later ... and often the damage has been done by then.

如果运动员是交叉用手型的，那么当选手在用主力手挥拍的时候，他的主力眼是看不见球拍的，这样的话他只能稍后做动作的修正……而这为时已晚。

And moving to a rather different type of sport which involves large but precise movements: gymnastics.

接下来我们将目光转向另一种完全不同的运动：体操。这项运动需要大量精准的动作。

It's been found that cross hand-eye favouring is best.

研究表明在体操运动中，交叉手眼配合是最佳的选择。

The predominant reason for this is because it aids balance which is of course absolutely central to performance in this sport.

这主要是因为交叉使用手眼有助于平衡，而这正是这项运动最核心的能力。