Behavior disorders and laterality of cerebral function

A dichotic listening test was employed to test the hypothesis that behavior disorders might have an abnormal laterality patterns of cerebral function. Eighteen behavior disorder out-patients of the psychiatry department at an university hospital and seventeen normal subjects were requested to recall dichotically presented words. The results showed that compared with the normal controls, the subjects with behavior disorders yielded less prominent right ear advantage, lesser response ear alternations, but better overall performances. The results do not support the hypothesis of the left hemisphere dysfunction in behavior disorders but suggest the possibility of the right hemisphere dysfunction.