A Left-Ear Advantage for Forced-Choice Judgements of Melodic Contour

Listeners heard a sequence of five tones presented monaurally, and then made a forced-choice judgement about the sequence's contour (i.e., its pattern of upward and downward shifts in pitch between successive tones). The forced-choice method ensured that contoured judgements were independent of absolute-pitch an interval cues. Performance was better for sequences presented to the left ear (right hemisphere) than it was for sequences presented to the right ear (left hemisphere). This finding provides support for claims of a right-hemisphere bias for the processing of melodic contour.