Ear asymmetry for recall of monaurally presented words

In order to test for ear asymmetry using monaural stimulation, 30 adult listeners were presented a series of ten-word lists and asked to recall words from early (position three) and late (position eight) positions in each list. Significantly better performance was obtained when the word lists were presented to the right ear of the subjects. Words occurring in position eight were recalled more accurately than words that occurred in position three. Ear asymmetry during monaural stimulation appeared to be related, at least in part, to competition between incoming and rehearsed stimuli during central memory processing.