Ear asymmetry in recognition of unfamiliar voices.
Female right-handed subjects were presented with a memory set consisting of five unfamiliar female voices. They were then tested with a recognition procedure in which samples of voice, memory set or novel, 2 or 4 sec in duration, were heard in one ear and a competing noise stimulus was heard in the other ear. There was an overall left-ear advantage in accuracy of recognition. This advantage held particularly for identifications of memory-set voices in the second half of trials. Internal analyses indicated that the left-ear advantage could not be attributed to greater retroactive interference during right-ear presentation. Congruent with studies of recognition of unfamiliar faces, the findings suggested right-hemisphere superiority in the recognition of unfamiliar voices.
D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004423:Ear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014831:Voice