Asymmetries in pitch perception of dichotic chords and middle latency evoked potentials

Abstract

The dominance of one ear over the other in the perception of pitch of dichotic chords has been reported by Efron and Yund [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 59, 889–898 (1976)] and in subsequent studies by that group. The present investigation addressed the existence of correlations between psychophysical and electrophysiological asymmetries. Specifically, the relation between ear dominance measured psychophysically using the Efron paradigm and right‐left asymmetries in middle latency auditory evoked potentials was examined in ten normal‐hearing adult subjects. Absolute and interwave latencies were obtained for middle latency responses to right and left monaural, binaural, and dichotic presentation conditions using tonal stimuli. Rank order correlation coefficients were used to compare right‐left ear and hemifield evoked potential latency differences to measures of ear dominance. Results indicated that latency measures, particularly for components involving wave Pb of the middle latency response, correlated with the di...