EU study confirms people prefer right ear for listening
Researchers are aware that people prefer to listen with their right ear rather than their left. But their conclusions have always been based on controlled studies in laboratories, not in natural settings. Enter an Italian team of EU-funded researchers who conducted three studies on human ear preference observed during social interactions in noisy surroundings. Their findings are published in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften. This research is part of the EDCBNL ('Evolution and development of cognitive, behavioural and neural lateralisation') project, funded by the EU within the 'Integrating and strengthening the European Research Area' programme to the tune of EUR 2.49 million. In a series of three studies, Dr Luca Tommasi and Daniele Marzoli from the University 'Gabriele d'Annunzio' of Chieti-Pescara in Italy showed that a natural side bias reveals itself every day in human behaviour. Past studies have shown that the right ear dominates when humans are given verbal stimuli. Researchers have postulated that this is due to the brain's left hemisphere superiority for processing verbal information. This latest research adds weight to what has long been known by researchers. Dr Tommasi and Mr Marzoli focused their research on ear preference in social interactions in nightclub environments. A total of 286 clubbers were observed in the first study, where 72% of interactions (i.e. holding discussions while loud music played in the background) occurred on the right side of the listener. A total of 160 clubbers (80 women and 80 men) were approached by a confederate experimenter (someone trained and pre-instructed but unknown to the subjects) in the second study. Inaudible, meaningless utterances like 'babababa' were mumbled while a face-to-face position and direct eye contact were maintained. Also, subjects not seen with a cigarette were then asked 'Do you have a cigarette?' The results showed that 58% offered their right ear for listening and 42% their left, and the women in particular showed a consistent right-ear preference. No connection was made between the number of cigarettes obtained and the ear receiving the request. In the third study, the confederate experimenter approached 176 clubbers and asked them for a cigarette. The request was made either to the right or left ear. The results showed that more right ear listeners offered cigarettes compared to the left ear listeners. 'In the previous study, no effect of side of interaction emerged on [the] subjects' proneness to meet the confederate's request,' said the researchers. 'This fact could be due to the particular situation in which participants were involved: they spontaneously offered one ear to the speaker. So, in the last discotheque study, we intentionally manipulated the ear in which the request was made to subjects, assuming that a sudden request from a stranger, targeted to [the] left or right ear, would have a strong impact on their reaction.' According to the researchers, the results of the first study are 'an ecological illustration of sensory-motor lateralisation during social coordination, representing a behavioural consequence' of the brain's left hemisphere specialisation for language processing. By using a quasi-experimental design in the second study, the researchers were also able to confirm a right-ear preference in listening. As for the third study, by specifically addressing their request for a cigarette to either the right or left ear, the researchers' result seems to be in agreement with the valence theory, 'suggesting differential specialisation of right or left hemispheres, respectively, for negative and positive emotions'. In a nutshell, the combined results confirm a right ear/left hemisphere advantage for verbal communication and distinctive specialisation of the two halves of the brain for approach and avoidance behaviour. 'Our studies corroborate the idea of a common ancestry - in humans and other species - of lateralised behaviour during social interactions, not only for species-specific vocal communication, but also for affective responses,' the researchers said.
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