Studies have suggested that supramodal attentional resources are biased rightward due to asymmetric spatial fields of the two hemispheres. This bias has been observed especially in right-handed subjects. We presented left and right-handed subjects with brief uniform grey visual stimuli in either the left or right visual hemifield. Consistent with…

Dichotic listening originally was a means of studying attention. Half a century ago Doreen Kimura parlayed the dichotic method into a noninvasive indicator of lateralized cerebral language representation. The ubiquitous right-ear advantage (REA) for verbal material was accepted as a concomitant of left-sided language lateralization and…

This article presents an overview of our studies in elderly and Alzheimer patients employing Kimura's dichotic digits paradigm as a measure for left hemispheric predominance for processing language stimuli. In addition to structural brain mechanisms, we demonstrated that attention modulates the direction and degree of ear asymmetry in dichotic…

The present study investigated a possible connection between speech processing and cochlear function. Twenty-two subjects with age range from 18 to 39, balanced for gender with normal hearing and without any known neurological condition, were tested with the dichotic listening (DL) test, in which listeners were asked to identify CV-syllables in a…

Schizophrenia has been associated with deficits in functional brain lateralization. According to some authors, the reduction of asymmetry could even promote this psychosis. At the same time, schizophrenia is accompanied by a high prevalence of nicotine dependency compared to any other population. This association is very interesting, because…

The present study quantified the magnitude of sex differences in perceptual asymmetries as measured with dichotic listening. This was achieved by means of a meta-analysis of the literature dating back from the initial use of dichotic listening as a measure of laterality. The meta-analysis included 249 effect sizes pertaining to sex differences and…

Behavioral and neurophysiological transfer effects from music experience to language processing are well-established but it is currently unclear whether or not linguistic expertise (e.g., speaking a tone language) benefits music-related processing and its perception. Here, we compare brainstem responses of English-speaking musicians/non-musicians…