Correlates of perceptual asymmetries in dichotic listening

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My proposal focuses on perceptual asymmetries in the auditory modality. The long-term objective of this component of my research program is to characterize the factors affecting perceptual asymmetries in an effort to understand their underlying neuro-functional and cognitive causes. The main theoretical foundation for my proposal stems from the model proposed by Hugdahl (2000) according to which the observed perceptual asymmetry in any task reflects a combination of a bottom-up component and a top-down component. The bottom-up aspect reflects stimulus content and cerebral organization, whereas the top-down aspect refers to attentional effects. However, I am proposing that other factors should be included in the top-down component. There are a number of lines of inquiries meeting the short-term objective of investigating bottom-up processes in perceptual asymmetries that I plan to pursue during the granting period. In one line of research, auditory tasks will be examined from the perspective that they have a significant memory component. My previous work of relevance suggests that a delay between target stimuli and response affects the magnitude of auditory asymmetries as well as the pattern of responding. These findings can be explained by rehearsal and its role in the observed effects. The experiments proposed in this line of research will investigate behavioral manifestations of components of memory (especially rehearsal) in dichotic listening through the manipulation of delay before retrieval with verbal and nonverbal stimuli. In this line of research, I will also focus more closely on order of report in the two-response situation to theorize on the potential role of the decision stage in auditory asymmetries. A second line of research will continue the work that I started on cross-modal affective priming in the context of dichotic listening. My student and I established that priming might work as a top-down stimulus to affect the observed auditory asymmetries. A series of experiments will extend the base findings to a one-response dichotic task, to unimodal priming, and to verbal and nonverbal stimuli. A third area of research in my proposal will focus on the potential role of the embodiment of emotions in the context of perceptual asymmetries. This line of work will involve the manipulation of motor factors during the completion of binaural and dichotic listening tasks. Other areas of inquiry might be described, depending on available space. The ultimate goal of this research is to identify tasks that provide valid and reliable measurement of perceptual asymmetries for use in the pre-surgery screening of patient with neurological impairments such as epilepsy and brain tumors. Thus, this research has strong potential significance relevant to the measurement of functional cerebral specialization while also contributing to models of perceptual asymmetries.