Dichotic competition of simultaneous tone bursts of different frequency—I. Dissociation of pitch from lateralization and loudness

Abstract

Subjects were presented with two 50 msec tone bursts of 1500 Hz and 1900 Hz separated by one second. One ear received the 1500–1900 sequence at one intensity level while the other ear simultaneously received the reversed (1900-1500 Hz) sequence at another intensity level. The subject was required to report which sequence he heard and its lateralization. A strong ear dominance effect was demonstrated in all 5 subjects for pitch information. A similar dominance for loudness and lateralization was absent. The existence of an ear dominance for pitch but not for lateralization and loudness indicates a striking dissociation in the neural processing of these two types of acoustic information.