An investigation of auditory laterality effects for verbal and melodic stimuli among musicians and nonmusicians

The purpose of this study was to determine if laterality effects differ for musicians and nonmusicians in the cerebral processing of musical stimuli. It was hypothesized that musicians, due to a more analytical approach to music listening, would demonstrate a right ear (left hemisphere) superiority for melodic stimuli, while nonmusicians would show a left ear (right hemisphere) dominance. Both groups, it was hypothesized, would reveal a right ear superiority for verbal stimuli. Verbal and melodic dichotic listening tasks were administered to a total of 44 musicians and 44 nonmusicians in two separate experiments. Group comparisons were made of right and left ear performance on each of the two auditory tasks. Both groups demonstrated a significant left ear effect for melodic recognition, which failed to support the first research hypothesis. The two groups demonstrated a nonmusicians right ear trend for verbal recall, which resulted in a lack of support for the second research hypothesis. It was concluded that the results of this study provide no evidence for laterality differences between musicians and nonmusicians in the processing of musical stimuli