Right Ear Advantage for Speech Presented Monaurally

Abstract

In a series of choice reaction time experiments members of minimal pairs of English words were presented monaurally to the right and left ears of right-handed subjects, who made a key-pressing response indicating the word they had heard. The word pairs used were /pit:bit/, /bit:bet/, /lei:rei/ and /splei:sprei/; the stimuli were recorded natural utterances. Mean reaction times showed a highly significant right ear advantage of 25 msec. in the case of the word pair /splei:sprei/, a significant right ear advantage of 15 msec. for /lei:rei/ and no significant difference between the ears for /pit:bit/ or /bit:bet/.