Dichotic listening using Mandarin CV-words of six plosives and vowel /a/

Available data on dichotic listening using tonal Chinese words have been limited, and conflicting results on a right-ear advantage (REA) have been reported. The current study developed a set of Mandarin CV-words based on the Bergen dichotic listening paradigm.

The test materials consisted of two sets of stimuli. The English set, derived from the iDichotic application, consisted of six nonsense syllables with plosives conjugated to /a/. The Mandarin set had these 6 CV-syllables spoken as real words according to the Mandarin phonology. Study sample: Forty young, native Mandarin speakers were tested dichotically with both sets of test materials. Twenty participants were right-handed, and the other twenty were left-handed. Fourteen participants were randomly selected to repeat the test with the Mandarin set.

The mean difference of correct recognition responses between two ears indicated a REA with both sets of stimuli for the right-handers, but not for left-handers. For the right-handers, performance with the Mandarin set was significantly better than performance with the English set. Dichotic listening with the Mandarin set had strong correlation between two time points, r = 0.8.

Performance using the Mandarin set is reliable in dichotic listening; a REA is observed for the right-handers.