Italian researchers looked at ear preference in communication between humans. Three experiments were conducted in noisy, dance club environments. Results indicate that a natural ear-side bias is seen in everyday human behavior.
The experiments, by psychologists Luca Tommasi, PhD, and Daniele Marzoli of University Gabriele d’Annunzio in Chieti, Italy, were conducted in noisy Pescara night clubs. Their research addresses “one of the best known asymmetries in humans,” whereby the right ear is better for listening to voice.
As
Wired.com reports:
Humans tend to have a preference for listening to verbal input with their right ears and that given stimulus in both ears, they’ll privilege the syllables that went into the right ear. Brain scientists hypothesize that the right ear auditory stream receives precedence in the left hemisphere of the brain, where the bulk of linguistic processing is carried out.
Prior research conducted experiments in controlled laboratory settings. “There is very little published observational evidence of spontaneous ear dominance in everyday human behavior.”
Experiment 1
Purpose: Observe clubbers while talking
Observations: 286 clubbers observed, loud music in background
Result: 72 per cent of interactions occurred on right side of listener
“These results are consistent with the right ear preference found in both laboratory studies and questionnaires and they demonstrate that the side bias is spontaneously displayed outside the laboratory.”
Experiment 2
Purpose: Approach clubbers, mumble “an inaudible, meaningless utterance,” observe subjects turn their head and offer either their left or right ear, ask for a cigarette
Observations: 160 clubbers approached by researchers, loud music in background
Result: 58 per cent offered right ear, 42 per cent offered left ear
“Only women showed a consistent right-ear preference. There was no link between the number of cigarettes obtained and the ear receiving the request.”
Experiment 3
Purpose: Approach clubbers, intentionally address in either right or left ear, ask for a cigarette
Observations: 176 clubbers approached by researchers, loud music in background
Result: Significantly more cigarettes received from having approached right ear compared to left ear of clubber
“We humans prefer to be addressed in our right ear and are more likely to perform a task when we receive the request in our right ear rather than our left.”
I had the privilege of asking Tommasi and Marzoli about the particulars of their research.
Q Did you address the correlation between right- or left-handedness to ear preference? (In the first and third studies, the percentage of right-ear preference correlates to the percentage of right-handed individuals in the world. Were subjects asked if they were right or left dominant?)
A: We did not address the issue of our subjects’ handedness, because we wished to be as unobtrusive as possible. Asking subjects about their manual preference could irritate them (in particular if we would have told them that we were “spying on” them). Moreover, rumours about our work could influence following interactions of other clubbers observed.
Q How does the second study confirm the belief to reflect the left-hemisphere verbal superiority?
A: The second study confirms that there is a right ear-orienting bias on the part of the listener which cannot be attributed to the speaker, the confederate taking care to maintain – as far as possible – a frontal position in relation to the participant during the whole experiment. Of course, this finding cannot exclude a complementary bias on the part of the speaker, leading them to address their utterance to the right ear of the speaker. In turn, such a bias could be eventually due to the various right-side preferences known to exist in humans (not only earedness, but also handedness, eyedness, etc.)
Q In the second and third studies, “experimental success” is based on if the questioner received a cigarette from the listener. Does every listener have cigarettes to give?
A: We point out that the experimenter asked for the cigarette only to subjects she had not seen smoking: we assume that, a priori, each subject of the “left-ear group” and of the “right ear group” had the same likelihood of being a smoker or a non-smoker, so we can reasonably expect that the ratio of smokers in both groups was quite similar. On the other hand, had the experimenter asked for the cigarette only to subjects she had seen smoking, this might have biased the reaction in the direction of complying to social norms, in the direction of an undesirable ceiling effect.
Q Were the three studies conducted in a closed, experimental environment with club background noise in addition to the actual clubs?
A: No. We believe that in an experimental environment, it should be very demanding to collect data on a sample comparable to those of our studies. However, at least as regards first and second studies, we expect similar findings. As regards the third study, the fact of being in an experimental setting could also affect participants’ responses.
Q Did the questioners approach from the left as well as right sides of the listener before deciding to talk into either the left or right ear? Was the club arranged so that the questioner was more likely to come in from one side? (I ask because in the second study, I assume the questioner and listener are facing face-to-face, giving the listener a choice as to what ear, with listeners not showing a preference.)
A: As regard the first study, we scored only verbal interactions in which the two participants faced each other frontally before the start of the interaction itself. So, if the speaker approached the listener form the right or the left side, the interaction was not considered. We carried out the experiments in environments quite large to allow subjects to approach each other frontally. As you note, in the second and third studies the confederate took particular care not to influence participants’ responses.
We humans prefer to be addressed in our right ear and are more likely to perform a task when we receive the request in our right ear rather than our left.
A published paper is in the current issue of
Naturwissenschaften (
Natural Sciences journal, German).
