Dichotic listening in musically naive and musically trained subjects

Abstract

The results of a dichotic listening study reported on at the 84th ASA meeting by Van Lancker and Fromkin [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 53, 343(A) (1973)] showed a right ear advantage for Thai words differing only in tone and only in initial consonant, but not for hummed pitches, when native Thai speakers served as subjects. Subsequent analysis of individual POE scores yielded significant correlations between performances on consonant-words and tone-words, and between tone-words and hums, suggesting that two modes of processing may have been used by Thai subjects. Preliminary testing of American English speakers resulted in no ear advantage in any of the three conditions. A study by Bever (1974) on nonlinguistic (musical) stimuli supports the hypothesis that hemispheric specialization is correlated with different processing modes, not with stimulus type, This paper reports on a study aimed at further investigation of this hypothesis. Two groups of American English speakers, musically naive and musically trained, were tested to determine whether ear advantages for recognizing tones (on Thai words) and pitches (on hums) differ between them. Implications for hemispheric specialization for linguistic and other acoustic stimuli will be discussed.