A Note on Cerebral Dominance in Hearing

Abstract

A recent paper by Calearo & Antonelli (1963) reporting no effect of cerebral dominance on the perception of speech sounds at the two ears prompts me to describe briefly some data of my own on the subject. The method employed was a variation of the Broadbent (1954) technique. Two different spoken numbers were presented simultaneously, one to one ear, one to the other ear. After three of such paired presentations the subject simply reported all the numbers he had heard in any order he liked. Normal subjects and patients with speech represented in the left hemisphere were more efficient on the right ear. Patients with speech represented in the right hemisphere, on the other hand, were more efficient on the left ear. These data were independent of handedness, i.e., the ear-efficiency of left-handed patients depended on whether they had speech in the right or the left hemisphere (Kimura, 1961a).