Dichotic listening, forced attention, and brain asymmetry in righthanded and lefthanded children

Abstract

Righthanded and lefthanded 7-year-old children (both boys and girls) were compared for dichotic listening performance under free report and forced attention conditions. Previous findings from our laboratory have shown that, while adults reverse the right ear advantage (REA) during the forced-left condition, children do not. Since the finding in children was unexpected, the first aim of the present study was to replicate our previous results. A second aim was to include lefthanded children with the hypothesis that they should more easily revert to a LEA, because of less homogeneous lateralization. The results essentially replicated our previous findings, during all three recall conditions. No sex differences were observed, and both handedness groups showed the same overall response pattern.