Differential attention effects on dichotic listening.

The role of attention in the differentiation of auditory processing disorders from attention deficit disorders is gaining considerable interest in both the clinical and research arenas. It has been well established that when attention is directed to one ear or the other on traditional dichotic tests, performance can be altered. However, preliminary studies in our laboratory have shown that dichotic fusion paradigms are resistant to shifts in ear performance associated with changes in attention. The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of normal listeners on a dichotic consonant-vowel and a dichotic rhyme (fusion) test. Both test procedures were administered to 20 young adults in three different listening conditions (free recall, attention directed to the left ear, and attention directed to the right ear). Results from this study supported the hypothesis that dichotic rhyme tests are resistant to alterations in the laterality of attention and have implications for the development of test paradigms that can be used to segregate attention from pure auditory deficits in the clinical domain.