Effects of sex, age, and forced attention on dichotic listening in children: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Seventy‐six children (38 boys, 38 girls) were tested with dichotic presentations of consonant‐vowel (CV) syllables under three different attentional instructions. Each child was tested twice: at age 8 and 1 year later (at age 9). The study investigated effects of laterally biased attention in dichotic performance in children. In the nonforced (NF) recall condition, children were free to report from both ears; in the forced‐right (FR) condition, they were instructed to attend to and report from only the right ear; in the forced‐left (FL) condition, they were instructed to attend to and report from only the left ear. The results showed a significant right‐ear advantage in both boys and girls and at both test occasions for the NF and FR conditions. During the FL condition, boys still reported more items from the right ear at age 8 but no at age 9, whereas girls reported an equal number of items from both ears at both test occasions. Thus, although hemisphere asymmetry did not change across age, the ability to laterally shift attention did and more so for boys than for girls.