Free Essay Sample: Dichotic Listening with Mid-Sentence Switch

The dichotic listening experiment was first conducted in the 1950s by Donald Broadbent. Donalds aim was to find out attention auditory abilities within the air commerce controllers. Ten years later, Doreen Kimura (1961a, 1961b) made some modification for the exemplary whereby she used spoken digits. The spoken numbers were availed concurrently one to each ear via headphones. The primary objective of the research was to determine language lateralization among the patients affected with epilepsy. Besides, healthy individuals were also subjected to the study. According to results in both circumstance participants with hemisphere language processing recollected more items from their right ears bringing about what is referred to as right ear advantage. In contrast, participants with communication functions lateralized to right hemisphere indicated various items received with the left ear. (Hugdahl & Andersson, 1986) argue that the recent come up with a constant-vowel version of the dichotic listening model is believed to be the basis of the iDichotic App. Other paradigms exist which tries to explain the biasness in the report of the right ear stimulus. The most widely accepted model is for (Kimura 1967) also known as a structural model.

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(Rosenzweig, 1951) Suggest that each ear is connected to the contralateral side of a brain. This explains why a stimulus played in the right ear will be actively encountered in the opposite left hemisphere, which is said to process language and speech in many individuals (Tervaniemi & Hugdahl, 2003; Frost et al., 1999; Loring et al., 1990). Despite the fact that a stimulus is presented to a left ear, it will have to be transported to right hemisphere first for it to be processed. The delay experienced in processing information of left ear comparing it with the right ear is considered to be a perfect explanation of, in preference to the right ear, dichotic listening. The day to day routine calls for focusing on auditory sources that surround us while instantly repressing additional events. Apart from the old research, now a days psychologists tend to concentrate on studying the phenomenon by use of brain imaging devices. However, the underlying interest of brain laterality has attracted most psychology researchers.

Regarding the techniques mentioned above, it so possible to examine laterality in ordinary persons using dichotic listening experiment. The investigation can be conducted by presenting two stimulants, one in each ear, then determining the accuracy in recognizing sounds. Another alternative way to study laterality is through divided visual field procedure and visual processing. In this article, the experiment is focused on dichotic listening and the preferred definitive method for it is the constant-vowel procedure. The purpose of the study is to give an insight of the two main areas of psychology which are cognition and perception.

Method

Every individual who was involved in the research was provided with a headphone that was plugged in to the audio jack port of the computer.

Design

The design of this study is within subjects. Every person is required to respond to some trials after that; analysis is done which brings a comparison of how well a person is to differentiate sounds based on if the individual got the information to the right ear or left ear. The variable considered to be dependent is the ability to distinguish the sounds correctly while independent variable is a presentation of the sound. The stimuli for the study were nonsense syllables created by pairing constants and vowel a which derived 36 combinations but only 15 combinations were considered for this experiment. For balancing in both ears, the sounds were recorded in 16-bit monaural mode and then edited to a duration of 500 milliseconds.

Participants

The research was carried out within the campus premises. The target population for this research was mostly my colleague students and friends who volunteered. A total population of 15 students was subjected to the dichotic listening experiment. Every individual had to listen up to a maximum 30 presentations of the stimuli while the performances involved two distinguish vowel-constant pairings availed to each ear.

Materials

Primary materials used in this experiment included pieces of paper and pen that were used to record anything one recalled during the hearing process that would be used for data analysis. Computers and headphones for listening for the stimuli in both ears simultaneously, a handset that was used for recording the constant-vowel pairing that resulted in the 15 combinations that were utilized in this experiment.

Procedure

The 15 participants were obliged to listen to the 30 presentations of stimuli. The performance consisted constant-vowel pairings presented to each ear. For instance, two sounds ka and pa were availed at the same time, however, each to the different ear. The sounds or presentations were then reversed to the collateral ears. Example, rather than presenting pa andka sounds to the left and right ear respectively; the sounds are presented to the right and left.

The research conducted was trying to examine if indeed the right ear advantage to listening can be recreated. Based on the evidence, the left hemisphere is dominantly responsible for processing language. In determining if there was a repeat of results, there was a need for calculating a portion of the correct responses which were made of the dependent variable. On the other hand, the ear hearing the sound were considered independent variable and comparing the correctly noticed sounds for each ear was used to test the hypothesis for this experiment. From the analysis, it was found that dichotic listening helps to elaborate the right ear advantage sound because the right ear recorded a higher accurately identified sounds from all the 15 participants.

Reference

Hugdahl, K. (2003). Dichotic listening in the study of auditory laterality. In K. Hugdahl & R. J. Davidson (Eds.), The asymmetrical brain. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Kimura, D. (1961). Cerebral dominace and the perception of verbal stimuli, Canadian journal of psychology, 15(3), 167-171.

Kimura, D. (1961b). Some effects of temporal-lobe damage on auditory perception. Canadian journal of psychology, 15, 156-165.

Rosenzweig, M. R. (1951). Representations of the two ears at the auditory cortex. American journal of physiology, 167(1), 147.