Milner, Brenda (1962)
MILNER, Brenda. “Laterality Effects in Audition.” In Interhemispheric Relations and Cerebral Dominance, ed. V. B. Mountcastle, 177-195. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962.
Presents findings regarding unilateral (left and right) temporal lobectomies performed on patients to relieve severe focal epilepsies. Begins with a review of the existing literature dealing with asymmetries of auditory functioning between the left and right temporal lobes. Uses the Seashore Measures of Musical Talents to test nonverbal auditory functioning. The Seashore Measures consist of six subtests, which ostensibly test pitch, loudness, rhythm, time (duration), timbre, and tonal memory aptitudes. Each subtest provides a different task of discrimination between stimuli. Although these tests may have clear findings in terms of the abilities which they address, it is somewhat of a stretch to consider them as accurately measuring “musical talents.” Also uses the Broadbent Test, which presents verbal stimuli dichotically. Concludes that the right temporal lobe plays a major role in the processing of nonverbal auditory stimuli. Whereas, the left temporal lobe is dominant for verbal processing. This is an early study, which attempted to separate out verbal from nonverbal audition. Subsequent refinement of methods could be expected to yield more conclusive results.
