Left-ear advantage for sounds characterized by a rapidly varying resonance frequency

Nonspeech stimuli were synthesized to constitute second-formant transitions in cons-vowel (CV) syllables, with either ascending or descending resonance fs. These were presented monaurally with contralateral noise to 16 adult Ss (6 Ms, 10 Fs), & reaction times for stimulus identification were measured. Reaction times were 12.8 milliseconds faster when the stimulus was presented to the left ear than to the right ear, suggesting right-hemisphere involvement in the processing of these stimuli. This result suggests that rapid temporal variation is not a sufficient stimulus property to invoke left-hemisphere processing. The roles of stimulus acoustic structure & S coding strategies are considered as factors that may determine lateralized hemispheric processing. Modified HA