Dichotically presented emotionally intoned words produce laterality differences as a function of localisation task

Two-syllabic words (burden; furrow; mantle; ration) each spoken in happy, a ngry, sad, and neutral tones of voice were dichotically paired. For each pr esented word-pair, subjects were asked to localise ("left"; "right") or rej ect the presence of one pre-specified word on one block of trials and one p re-specified emotional tone on a second trial block. Right ear advantages ( REAs) indicated by a superior hit rate averaging 9.6% were found for all wo rds. Left car advantages (LEAs) averaging 15.2% were obtained for emotional intonation, with additional evidence of differences between emotion catego ries. Results are discussed in terms of complementary hemispheric roles for linguistic and prosodic analysis.