Shorter Articles and Notes Left-Right Differences in Auditory Perception of Verbal and Non-Verbal Material by Children

Abstract

One hundred and twenty children, 60 boys and 60 girls, varying in age between 6 and 12 years were presented with a series of digits and Morse-like sound patterns to each ear separately. As predicted, sound patterns were found to better retained when presented to the left ear than when presented to the right ear. Series of digits however were not retained better via the right ear than via the left ear. The dominance of the left ear for non-verbal material decreases with increasing age. For verbal material a quadratic relation between the dominance of the right ear and age was established.