Re: [LAU] Perception - Was: Measuring the acoustical characteristics of my studio using FLOSS software?

From: Charles Z Henry <czhenry@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Thu Aug 07 2014 - 05:00:43 EEST

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 8:54 PM, Ralf Mardorf
<ralf.mardorf@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
> With my left ear I'm able to hear some frequencies or at least one
> frequency at very low volumes I'm unable to hear with my right ear, so
> technically it's my better ear, but with my right ear understanding the
> content of speech and music is easier to do. Perhaps "content of music"
> isn't a good phrasing, but similar to the content of speech, there's a
> difference for the perception of music by comparing my left with my
> right ear/hearing that seems to be independent of the technical ability
> of hearing. Wit/reason is interacting different with perception from the
> left and right ear.
>
> JFTR my hearing with both ears is ok, there isn't a difference regarding
> physical health of the ears. Regarding the brain, I'm right-hander, but
> dyslexic. Being a left-hander or dyslexic seems to have impact to
> artistically mind.
>
> When mixing music I not only switch between stereo and mono, but I also
> change the left and right channel.
>
> I wonder how clearly the difference between left and right ear
> perception/understanding is for others?!
>
> Regards,
> Ralf

What you're describing is the right-ear advantage for perception of
speech. This occurs among people with strongly left-hemisphere speech
function lateralization. I think it's a relatively small effect size
(the variance is large by comparison and experiments require a large
number of subjects to get enough experimental power).

Not all people have left-hemisphere speech lateralization, although it
is the most common (and strongly wired from birth). A fewer number of
people have right-hemisphere language dominance and some people have
no dominant hemisphere for language. The well known Wernicke's area
is typically found in the left hemisphere planum temporale (secondary
auditory cortex adjacent to heschl's gyrus).

Language lateralization is strongly correlated with handedness. There
are many studies of auditory attention in which the results of
left-handed people do not match with right-handed people.

There are ways to measure lateralization: my favorite is probably
trans-cranial doppler ultrasound sonography. There is also the
amobarbitol test which is used prior to brain surgery to avoid
removing parts of the brain which are necessary for language.

I had written a paper about this subject back in 2006 (my final paper
in cognitive psychology). My hypothesis in the paper was that
lateralization facilitates auditory attention. Lesser degrees of
lateralization translate into less effective inhibition of
task-unrelated stimuli, according to the Triesman attention model, and
the corresponding ways in which auditory attention is allocated: by
spatial location, by spectrum, by content, and by temporal
characteristics.

I'd be happy to provide anyone with the studies and papers I have read
(or a copy of the paper I had written which includes the sources).
Disclaimer: I am not a current expert in the field, only a student,
and my knowledge may be a little dated.
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Received on Thu Aug 7 08:15:01 2014

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