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Short Sharp Science: A New Scientist blog

When you want something, talk into the right ear

Thumbnail image for ribery.JPG

Ewen Callaway, reporter





The Daily Telegraph has a stab at explaining why:

"Known as the 'right ear advantage', scientists believe it is because information received through the right ear is processed by the left hand side of the brain which is more logical and better at deciphering verbal information than the right side of the brain."

It may seem odd to stage the experiment in a noisy club, but the researchers claim that thumping beats allowed them to approach people to speak in one ear or another without looking strange.

Moreover, in the journal Naturwissenschaften they write: "We would finally like to add that it is of utmost importance, in times of massive use of imaging techniques (that by definition impose severe constraints on the observation of neural activities in freely acting subjects) to continue to provide ecological evidence of brain functioning."

(Image: Giuliano Bevilacqua/Rex Features)
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Has anyone considered that this may only work with smokers? The R ear is controlled by the L side of the brain, which may be weaker in smokers.


Perhaps this has something to do with the phone experiment: it's been quite some time since it was established that people tend to be more emotionally involved into conversations when keeping the phone next to the left ear rather than holding it against the right ear, etc. Although, it looks to be an apparently opposite outcome.


The telegraph isn't particularly known for it's scientific rigor. There are so many potential problems in this study, it's hard to draw many conclusions.

Let's see, the statistical significance of a sample of 176 people in one city, the nature of the request, the intoxication level of the sample, the relative ambient sound volume, the relative genders and orientation of the sample....


Lilly Hunter - "Has anyone considered that this may only work with smokers? The R ear is controlled by the L side of the brain, which may be weaker in smokers."

What a peculiar comment.
The left hemisphere of the brain may be "weaker" in smokers?
"Weaker"? How? In what way/s? Why? Why just one hemisphere anyway?
Do you have any evidence, or reasoning, for this at all? How did you arrive at this idea?

Back to the article - Were all the people approached smokers? How did they know? Can you smoke in clubs in Italy? Did they only approach people who were actually smoking or they had seen smoking? If not, did they approach people at random and exclude people who said they didn't smoke? (Some may have been lying simply because they didn't want to give away a cigarette).


Lily Hunter - I'm not a smoker myself, but I take issue with your point that smoking is evidence of weaker left-brain function. Many things contribute to whether or not a person smokes; I know quite a few intensely intelligent, logical smokers.


Maxtheglad: the left hemisphere is better at processing verbal information, whereas the right hemisphere is thought to be better at processing emotional information. That is why there would be more emotional involvement when a phone is kept next to the left ear (which sends info directly to the right hemisphere). Neat stuff huh?


They used a single woman. Maybe the woman asking was more attractive on one side (not fully symmetrical) and the people being asked responded to that. Maybe her approach was different when asking in someone's right ear (approaching from behind vs. approaching directly). Maybe she had an opinion about which should be more effective and subconsciously changed her tone. Where are the controls? And 88 people is hardly a large test base. Doesn't sound like a very scientific experiment to me.


Great! Honestly, Just two days back I had surmised this. I cannot hear all frquencies in my left year after a head injury. Now that I use my right year for telephones, I sense better slightest variations in tone used by speakers and correctly conclude his mood and import. I also have smarter perceptions than in left ear throughout my life.


I was wondering whether it relates to the hand we use. If we get use to a certain side of the brain, that half of the brain might work at a faster rate. I remember reading that if neurons are not used, they slowly decompose. So if we are right handed, then the lef side of the brain might worker better, thus causing our right ear to function better as well.


I think its simply a matter of awkwardness. It's much easier to give a cigarette to a person standing on your right side, because most people would use their right hand -- try to take your wallet out of your left pocket with your right hand, you'll see what I mean. :)


Has anybody considered possibility that some of those people are left-handed and that it is normal for them to use left side more readily then the right side? What is so new about this?


To all the people outraged at the "Left weaker in smokers" comment, perhaps you should, instead of becoming defensive and insulted, consider the merits to the question posed.

Nicotine and associated health problems from smoking (not to mention the psycho- and neuro-logical reasons that someone might choose to start smoking in the first place) could very well originate or cause hemispherical differences.

I read no statement saying it was so, just a question, and thus: the origins of science.


haha, left ear in, right ear out.



Electric cigarettes honestly seem the thing to do, for me at least. And you can smoke them anywhere.

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