{"id":1543,"date":"2021-03-20T21:33:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T21:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicianscience.org\/?p=1543"},"modified":"2021-03-20T21:33:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T21:33:52","slug":"women-are-better-at-processing-melodies-heard-in-their-left-ears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicianscience.org\/index.php\/women-are-better-at-processing-melodies-heard-in-their-left-ears\/","title":{"rendered":"Women are better at processing melodies heard in their left ears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Image credit – Sony<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Title of paper under discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laterality effects in the processing of melody and timbre<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

RUSS BOUCHER and M. P. BRYDEN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neuropsychologia, Vol. 35, No. 11, pp. 1467-1473. 1997<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to paper<\/a> (free access)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above – Phil Bryden<\/a>, joint author (1934 – 1996)<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening with headphones to a series of musical excerpts – each of which was in fact two different melodies playing at once, one in each ear – participants in this experiment were asked after each excerpt whether or not they had spotted a \u2018target\u2019 in either ear. In the first set of excerpts (\u2018melody task\u2019) this target was a specific melody, for example \u2018Non pi\u00f9 andrai<\/em>\u2019 from Mozart\u2019s \u2018Marriage of Figaro<\/em>\u2019; meaning that in some of the excerpts \u2018Non pi\u00f9 andrai<\/em>\u2019 was the melody being played to one of the ears. For the second set of excerpts (\u2018timbre task\u2019) the target to listen out for was a specific instrument playing one of the melodies – for example clarinet.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Female participants were better at spotting melodies played to their left ears than to their right, whereas male participants showed no such melody \u2018ear advantage\u2019. Neither sex showed an \u2018ear advantage\u2019 in spotting instrumental timbre.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u2018left ear advantage\u2019, more pronounced in women than men, for processing melody<\/em> complements a recognised \u2018right ear advantage\u2019, more pronounced in men than women, for processing words<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above – University of Waterloo, Ontario<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Method<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audio tracks of four different melodies (taken from the duettino L\u00e0 ci darem<\/em> from W. A. Mozart’s Don Giovanni<\/em>, K. 527; the aria Non pi\u00f9 andrai<\/em> from W. A. Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro<\/em>, K. 492; and the March in D major from J. S. Bach’s Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach<\/em>, BWV 508-18) were created, each one in four different synthetic versions: for clarinet, harp, piano and trumpet. With each melody recorded in each timbre, the researchers boasted a total of 16 tracks for use in the experiment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

32 men and 32 women, all right-handed non-musicians, were recruited from the University of Waterloo, Ontario. None had ever taken instrumental music lessons. To begin each experiment, the individual participant was asked to learn to recognise a \u2018target\u2019. For the \u2018melody task\u2019 this meant listening to, and so learning to recognise, a target melody (one chosen by the researchers from the four melodies); and for the \u2018timbre task\u2019 it meant listening to, and so learning to recognise, a target timbre (one chosen by the researchers from the four timbres). Each participant was assigned to listen out for just one such target melody (in the melody task), and one such target timbre (in the timbre task). So, for example, a particular participant might have been listening out for \u2018L\u00e0 ci darem<\/em>\u2019 in the melody task, and then any melody played on the \u2018trumpet\u2019 in the timbre task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above – ‘dichotic listening’; in which someone is presented with two streams of auditory information simultaneously, one in each ear<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once trained to recognise their targets, the participant underwent a series of trials. In each trial, two different melodies were presented simultaneously to the participant through binaural headphones, with the melody to the right ear always different to that to the left; all 144 possible paired combinations of the 16 tracks were used in each experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the melody task trials, the participant was asked to circle a \u201cyes\u201d on a response sheet every time she or he recognised their target melody being played in either ear. Similarly, in the timbre task trials, every recognition of the target timbre was recorded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from the trials, participants were also asked how much they listened to music in their everyday lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above – Russ Boucher, lead author<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Results<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each participant\u2019s \u2018ear advantage\u2019 – a metric determining whether melodies, or timbres, were more likely to be spotted if presented in the right ear (\u2018right ear advantage\u2019) or in the left ear (\u2018left ear advantage\u2019) – was determined using a formula that balanced the number of correct \u201cYes\u201d responses against the number of melodies\/timbres that were not spotted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women were more likely to show a \u2018left ear advantage\u2019 for melody recognition, whereas men showed no \u2018ear advantage\u2019 for melody but tended to be more accurate at recognising melodies overall. Neither men nor women exhibited an \u2018ear advantage\u2019 when it came recognising timbre. This table shows the percentage of correct responses, in the melody and timbre tasks, according to sex and \u2018ear of presentation\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Participants performed more accurately (in both ears) in whichever experiment – melody task or timbre task – came first out of the two:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Participants who spent more time listening to music in their everyday lives were more accurate on the melody task, but not on the timbre task. And these \u2018more musically familiar\u2019 participants didn\u2019t exhibit higher levels of \u2018ear advantage\u2019, left or right, with either task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the overall accuracy of a given individual participant\u2019s responses did not predict their levels of \u2018ear advantage\u2019; nor did an individual\u2019s level of melody \u2018ear advantage\u2019 correlate with their level of timbre \u2018ear advantage\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above – the left and right hemispheres of the brain<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Auditory sensations in the right ear are mainly, but not exclusively, processed by the left hemisphere of the brain, and those in the left ear by the right hemisphere. Hence the authors\u2019 assertion that the \u201coverall emergence of an LEA [left ear advantage] for melody recognition supports previous research suggesting that the right hemisphere is superior for the processing of musical stimuli\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boucher and Bryden has predicted that timbre, which is heavily dependent on the subtle timings of \u2018attack\u2019 frequencies, might be better perceived by the right ear, because previous research had suggested that the left hemisphere of the brain is \u2018dominant\u2019 for such temporal (timing) processing. However, such \u2018right ear advantage\u2019 was not clearly evident in their results for the timbre task, even though the results perhaps hinted at it; this may, they suggest, be because the task was too easy, and that repeating the experiment using timbres more difficult to differentiate might in future reveal the \u2018right ear advantage\u2019 they were expecting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The suggestion from these results that \u201claterality [left or right ear advantage] for melody recognition is independent of laterality for timbre recognition\u201d pleased Bryden; he had previously argued that just because in general people exhibit a \u2018right ear advantage\u2019 for verbal processing and a \u2018left ear advantage\u2019 for non-verbal processing, it doesn\u2019t mean those two lateralities are themselves<\/em> related. Results from this paper, he argues, support his idea that “the observation in an individual that one hemisphere is specialized for a particular function implies nothing about the functions of the other hemisphere in that individual”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, the authors once more stress the way in which the findings of this study – that women appear to have a greater \u2018left ear advantage\u2019 of melody recognition than men – complements previous studies (with similar methods) of verbal listening in which men tended to show a greater \u2018right ear advantage\u2019 than women. In the words of Boucher \u201cThis supports the idea of a complementary sex-based pattern of auditory lateralization, with males more strongly lateralized for verbal stimuli and females more strongly lateralized for non-verbal stimuli\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above – University of Waterloo, panoramic view<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Coda<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non pi\u00f9 andrai<\/a><\/em> from W. A. Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro<\/em>, K. 492<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figaro – Bryn Terfel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, cond. Kees Bakels <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title of paper under discussion Laterality effects in the processing of melody and timbre Authors RUSS BOUCHER and M. P. BRYDEN Journal Neuropsychologia, Vol. 35, No. 11, pp. 1467-1473. 1997 Link to paper (free access) Overview Listening with headphones to a series of musical excerpts – each of which was in fact two different melodies …<\/p>\n

Women are better at processing melodies heard in their left ears<\/span> Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,25,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lateralisation","category-musician","category-sex-difference"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen are better at processing melodies heard in their left ears - ADRIAN BRADBURY cellist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discussion of a paper on Lateralisation, Sex difference and Musician, hosted by cellist Adrian Bradbury\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicianscience.org\/index.php\/women-are-better-at-processing-melodies-heard-in-their-left-ears\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women are better at processing melodies heard in their left ears - 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