Perception of dichotic chords (free recall and directed recall), nonsense syllables
(CVs), and three-pair digits was assessed on 24 musicians and 24 nonmusicians. On
the dichotic-CV and dichotic-digit free-recall tasks, there was a significant right-ear
advantage, but there were no group differences. With the dichotic-chords, free-recall
condition, a significant left-ear advantage was observed but no group difference.
For the dichotic-chords, directed-recall conditions, the musicians performed significantly
better by 10 percent than the nonmusicians. Unexpectedly, for the dichotic chords,
the 62–72 percent correct performances were better on the free-recall condition than
the 42–55 percent performances on the directed-recall conditions. These differences
between the two response modes were attributed to the difficulty of the dichotic-chord
listening tasks and the probabilities associated with the closed-set response paradigms.
The findings suggest that the dichotic-chord paradigm used in this study should not
be included in clinical protocols used to assess auditory perceptual abilities.
Key Words
Auditory processing - dichotic chords - dichotic CVs - dichotic digits - directed
recall - musicians
