Between- and within-ear congruency and laterality effects in an auditory semantic/emotional prosody conflict task.
The present study investigated the influence of within- and between-ear congruency on interference and laterality effects in an auditory semantic/prosodic conflict task. Participants were presented dichotically with words (e.g., mad, sad, glad) pronounced in either congruent or incongruent emotional tones (e.g., angry, happy, or sad) and identified a target word or emotion under one of two conditions. In the within-ear condition, the congruent or incongruent dimensions were bound within a single stimulus and therefore, presented to the same ear. In the between-ear condition, the two dimensions were split between two stimuli and, therefore, presented in separate ears. Findings indicated interference in both conditions. However, the expected right ear advantage (EA) for words and left EA for emotions were obtained only in the between-ear condition. Factors involved in producing interference and laterality effects in dichotic listening tasks are discussed.
Techentin
Cheryl
C
Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, Bag Service 45444, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada E3B 6E4. Cheryl.Techentin@unb.ca
Voyer
Daniel
D
Klein
Raymond M
RM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004423:Ear / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult