Ear preference in auditory perception.

Abstract

In a dichotic listening experiment, normal adult Ss [subjects] identified numbers presented to the right ear more accurately than numbers presented to the left ear and preferred to report the material from the right ear first. To evaluate the effect of order of report a further experiment was performed (N = 32) in which Ss were instructed to report each channel first equally often. When 3 or 4 digits were presented to each ear, most Ss identified material from the right ear more accurately than material from the left ear. When 5 digits were presented to each ear, this difference was not observed. The findings suggest that the auditory system is better organized for the perception of verbal material presented to the right ear.