Dichotic listening performance, cognitive ability, and cerebral organization.

Explored linkages between dichotic listening performance, cognitive ability, and cerebral organization, addressing 3 main questions: (1) the relationship of sex, handedness, and familial sinistrality to auditory laterality and to selected aspects of cognitive performance; (2) the relationship between laterality and cognitive ability; and (3) the relationship between verbal and musical laterality. Two dichotic listening tests (one involving recognition of stop consonant-vowel syllables and the other, recognition of melodic patterns) were administered to 120 college students balanced for handedness, sex, and familial sinistrality. Ss also underwent psychometric tests. Results indicate an independence of verbal and nonverbal laterality effects and support a componential (modular) theory of brain organization rather than one of complementarity. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)