The effects of head and eye turns on the right ear advantage in dichotic listening

Abstract

The aim of the present experiment was to investigate the effects of head and eye turns on the ear advantage in dichotic listening (DL) to CV-syllables. Since head and eye turns also mean focusing attention to either the left or right side in space, a second aim was to evaluate recent arguments that ear advantages seen in DL are caused by the perceived position in space of the sound source. Forty right-handed females had 36 trials of CV-syllables under four different instructions. One group ( n = 20) was instructed to turn their head (but not their eyes) to the right, the left, or straight ahead during stimulus presentations. The fourth condition was a standard (no instruction) condition. A second group ( n = 20) had the same instructions but were told to turn their eyes instead of their heads. Conditions were pseudo-counterbalanced across subjects. Consistent with other studies, results showed a right ear advantage (REA) in both groups during all conditions. However, the REA was largest for the standard condition. Also, more subjects showed a REA during the standard condition, and especially compared to the turn-right condition. It is concluded that dichotic performance is not caused by selective attention to either side in space, and that lateral turns of the head and the eyes contralateral to the left hemisphere have an inhibitory (if anything) effect on the REA.