title: Comparison of target monitoring and two-ear monitoring dichotic listening procedures.
abstract: The dichotic listening performance of 40 listeners was assessed for consonant-vowel (CV) nonsense syllables with two procedures. One was a conventional two-ear monitoring task in which listeners attended to both ears and provided two responses for each pair of syllables. The ear advantage was described by % RE-% LE. The second was target monitoring, a yes/no task in which listeners attended to only one ear and listened for the presence of a target syllable. That procedure provided both hit and false alarm rates for each ear, and the ear advantage was described by P(C)maxRE-P(C)maxLE, which is insensitive to decision variables. Although both procedures yielded mean right-ear advantages (REA), the mean REA of +7.5% with two-ear monitoring was significantly different from the mean REA of +2.6% with target monitoring. In addition, although 62% of the listeners had a significant REA with the conventional procedure, only 40% had a significant REA with target monitoring. Decision variables, which are not controlled with conventional dichotic testing methods, may contribute to the ear advantage as it is described frequently in the literature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Speaks
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Niccum
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Leathers
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Katsuki-Nakamura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004007:Dichotic Listening Tests / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006320:Hearing Tests / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D000091402:Prohibitins