Effects of phonetic similarity and order of report on the right ear advantage.

Two experiments are reported which were aimed at testing the effect of phonetic similarity and order of report on the right ear advantage in consonant-vowel dichotic tasks. The stimuli were consonant-vowel syllables which comprised the six stop consonants: /ba/, /da/, /ga/, /pa/, /ta/ and /ka/. In Experiment 1 the syllables were contrasted on place of articulation (condition 1) or on voicing (condition 2). In Experiment 2 the stimuli were contrasted either on one feature (place or voicing) or on both features (place and voicing). The results showed that the right ear advantage did not depend on phonetic similarity, whereas it depended on the order of report, being stronger when the perceptual channel was considered.