Photo by LuodanliDuring the course of providing curative CDs I researched the differentiation in how left and right-handed listeners pick up sounds of particular frequencies when listening through earphones. My suspicions were proved correct when a study by a psychology master revealed that, indeed, there was a difference in how left and right-handed listeners picked up on sound.
A study published in the ‘Journal of Experimental Psychology’ has shown that left-handers actually think differently and goes so far as to suggest that handedness may influence left-handers’ decisions on everything. This is why I provide instructions to reverse the headphones if you are left-handed when listening to any of my motivational audios.
Using an ensemble as an example off how we hear certain pitches, just take a look at how all or most of the musicians playing high-pitched instruments are located to the left-hand side if you view them from the audience side. Could there be method in this set-up? Well, the rest of the musicians benefit from this because from where they are positioned they will certainly hear the highest pitches in great detail. These greater pitched sounds are coming into their right ears with a crisp clarity. However, the leader conducting the ensemble receives those pitches from their right-hand side, putting them at a disadvantage.
An in-depth study of right-handers has shown that they have a right-ear advantage, the durations of hearing for the right and left ears were compared for 81 right and 45 left-handed high school students. The 1991 ‘Previc hypothesis’ supported that right-handers have a right-ear advantage and left-handedness was found to be associated with a left-ear advantage. This explains why it is important to use headphones accordingly when listening to therapy-based CDs that need to be used in conjunction with headphones.
There was found to be a significant connection in the results to substantiate that people with right hand dominance had a definite affinity with their right ears, as did left-handed people with their left ears. This test concluded that the choice of dominant hand was interrelated to regularity of the acoustic sensitivity. Even when each ear of a left-handed listener was played sound to at varied lengths of time there was nothing to show that the right ear was taking over dominance at any point.
To do a quick test to see which of your hands is the dominant one, it might help you to use what is called the ‘Edinburgh Handedness Inventory’. This test is simple, just tick a few boxes and the results can be worked out in minutes. This is available from the link in the author box at the end of this article. You will find this to be beneficial for deciding which might be your dominant ear when you use certain audio CDs that are of a therapeutic nature.
Just because you are right-handed does not mean you are dominant in right-sidedness! As much as you have a primary hand, you also have a primary eye, leg and foot, etc! Not all of these are interrelated to the same side of your body. You may use a tennis racket with your right hand but use your left boot as the primary kicker when playing soccer. Studies of undergraduates found that they associate upbeat thoughts with their primary side and downbeat thoughts with their secondary side.
The male of the human species is more prone to having dominant use of their left hand than the lady of the species. Just because a child’s mother and father are both left-handed does not mean they will be, as there is only a 1 in 4 chance of this being the case. Apparently in the last 80 years there have been 7 left-handed US presidents, Barack Obama being one of them!
What can you do to overcome the problem of having to keep putting your headphone set on the reverse way round if you are left-handed? Well you if your headphones are connected to your computer via cables you can swap them around so that left source goes to right ear and vice versa. Some sound cards and receivers allow you to electronically swap the source.
Try switching your headset when listening to different audios, whatever feels good for you is fine. There are, at times, no hard and fast rules. There is no real left/right brain way to determine what is right for you. Something worth noting though is, you may not have this ’switched’ brain activity just because you are a left-hander.
Left-handed utensils and tools have come on a long way since everything was ‘right-handed’. Now you can even get a left-handed pen, tape-measures, corkscrews, scissors and much more. What is interesting is that you can get a boomerang for left-handers, but left-handed headsets are more difficult to come by! Roughly 10 percent of the world’s population are left-handed. That’s an awful lot of left-handed people from the 7 billion world population! Maybe the electronics industry will take note.
As a baby, Stephen Richards was a natural left-hander, but he was forced to write with his right hand by a brutalschool system. The ‘Edinburgh Handedness Inventory’ is an ideal resource to find your dominant hand.
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