Tones disappear faster in the right ear than in the left

Abstract

In order to gain further information on the characteristics and physiological correlates oftone decay in humans, the tone decay test was administered to 58 normal-hearing subjects, successively in the left and right ears and in absence and presence of a contralateral noise. The results revealed that tone decay was greater in the right than in the left ear and was increased by contralateral noise. The contralateral effect of this noise on cochlear biomechanisms was then estimated by measuring contralaterally induced variations in the amplitude of click-evoked otoacoustic emissions in the same subjects. In the right ear, the increase in tone decay and the decrease in otoacoustic emission amplitude-both induced by contralateral noise-were positively correlated (r = .315, p =.016). Furthermore, the contralateral changes in otoacoustic emission amplitude were found to be on average larger in the right than in the left ear, this asymmetry being correlated with that observed for the tone decay. These findings are discussed in relation to previous results on simple and induced loudness adaptation in the vicinity of threshold, on contralateral attenuation of otoacoustic emissions and on the influence of the auditory efferents on cochlear biomechanisms.

Silent Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of Tonotopicity and Stimulus Intensity Coding in Human Primary Auditory Cortex

“…The site of stimulation is also shown to be a factor on the observed auditory cortex function. 28,29,31 However, effects of hand preference, ipsilateral, contralateral, and binaural stimulus presentation on the auditory cortex activation are beyond the scope of this study.…”

“…Functional differences between the cerebral hemispheres have been reported by previous studies. 26–31 Left hemispheric dominance has been implicated in the processing of verbal stimuli, whereas right hemispheric dominance for nonverbal stimuli is determined in right‐handed individuals. In the present study, all subjects were right handed, and left monaural stimulation was preferred to evoke activation because pure‐tone stimuli are processed predominantly in the right hemisphere.…”

Hemispheric asymmetry of the right ear advantage in dichotic listening

“…At the peripheral level there is evidence that: (1) hearing sensitivity is better in the right ear (McFadden, 1993;McFadden and Mishra, 1993); (2) the prevalence of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions is greater in the right ear (McFadden, 1993;Khalfa and Collet, 1996); (3) transient otoacoustic emission amplitudes are greater in the right ear (Khalfa et al, 1998a,b), (4) tone decay is greater in the right ear (Khalfa et al, 2000); (5) temporary threshold shift is greater in the left ear (Khalfa and Collet, 1996); (6) tinnitus is more prevalent in the left ear (Khalfa et al, 1997); and (7) the medial olivo-cochlear efferent system is more effective on the right side (Khalfa et al, 1998a,b).…”

Olivocochlear Efferents: Anatomy, Physiology, Function, and the Measurement of Efferent Effects in Humans

“…It has been suggested that OAE asymmetries are attributable to asymmetries in MOC effect (Morlet, Goforth, Hood, et al, 1999). Various data indicate that there are asymmetries in MOC effect and that these covary with gender and handedness (Khalfa, Veiullet, & Collet, 1998;Khalfa, Micheyl, Pham, et al, 2000), but it is not known whether these produce the OAE asymmetry. An interesting tie between cortical asymmetry and MOC effect asymmetry is suggested by the observations that there are more benzodiazepine receptors in the left than in the right cortex, and that benzodiazepine ingestion reduces contralaterally elicited MOC suppression in the right ear but has little such effect in the left ear (Morand, Bouvard, Ryvlin, et al, 2001;MorandVilleneuve, Veiullet, Perrot, et al, 2005).…”