Laterality in the perception of temporal cues of musical timbre.

Laterality in the perception of non-stationary aspects of musical timbre was investigated in 54 right-handed non-musicians. Timbre differences were produced by altering the amplitude envelope of a steady-state complex tone. Two single-choice tests with attention directed to one ear were used--a dichotic test and a monaural test with contralateral white noise. Dependent variables were reaction time and accuracy. Both tests showed a significant left ear advantage for reaction time. For the accuracy variable, a significant left ear advantage was found only in the monaural test. Results are briefly discussed in terms of their compatibility with the generally accepted notion that spectral and temporal integrations of sounds are primarily functions of the right and left hemisphere, respectively.