Ear differences in evaluating emotional tones of voice and verbal content

Describes 2 experiments in which lateralization of monaural, auditory input affected the evaluation of verbal passages. In Exp I, Ss listened to taped passages that consisted of 3 levels (positive, neutral, and negative) of tone of voice crossed with 3 similar levels of content or meaning, making a total of 9 different tone/content combinations. Ss rated these passages as positive, neutral, or negative, and although they were not instructed about which cues (tone or content) to use, 29 of 36 Ss who listened on the left ear primarily used the tone-of-voice cues to rate the passages; 21 Ss who listened on the right ear used the content cues. In Exp II, 66 Ss were asked to make objective ratings of both tone of voice and content. Ss who listened on the right ear were more accurate in rating both cues. The lateral differences in evaluating the auditory stimuli are discussed in the framework of the left hemisphere's specialization for analytic processing of objective information and the right hemisphere's specialization for the holistic processing of subjective or emotional information. However, each hemisphere's specialization for tone and content cues can be greatly affected by the demands of the experimental task. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).