Occupation and dichotic listening performance

A previous study has shown that dichotic listening performance was related to occupation (Govier & Bobby, 1994). That experiment used subjects drawn from a variety of professional occupations. The experiment described here tested the dichotic performance of male and female subjects in a single professional setting; medicine. Male and female doctors and male and female nurses were tested on a dichotic listening task. The results indicated that pattern of dichotic performance was more closely associated with occupation than biological sex, and were interpreted as supporting the view that both occupational choice and dichotic-listening asymmetries depend on biologically determined aspects of brain organisation.