Abstract
Age-related changes in auditory spatial perception of linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli in participants between 5 and 79 years of age were studied. The results show that the strength of the rightward perceptual bias in linguistic bilateral (dichotic) stimulus condition changes as a function of age. In childhood and old age also other rightward spatial biases were observed in linguistic as well as in non-linguistic stimulus conditions. We propose that the auditory rightward spatial biases are not specific to the language and are probably modulated by the early development and late decline of the executive functions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We acknowledge Teemu Laine for programming, Tuulikki Tuominen for practical assistance, and Päivi Klemola, Niina Övermark, Faramosh Rashid, and Laura Jokiranta for practical assistance and data collection. Special thanks are due to the participants for taking part in the study.
Notes
This study was supported financially by the Nordic Centre of Excellence in Cognitive Control, by the National Doctoral Programme of Psychology in Finland and by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. M.K was supported by the academy of Finland (project 125175).