Monaural recall and the right-ear advantage

Lists of eight nonsense syllables were monaurally presented to right-handed men and women for free recall, half to each ear on each trial. Results showed a right-ear advantage (REA) in the recall of recency items, but not primacy items and for males only. Among males only that subgroup without familial sinistrality demonstrated the REA. Results offer support for the following: (A) the language mechanisms involved in short-term “echoic” memory are particularly well-lateralized; (B) mechanisms underlying monaural REAs may be similar to those responsible for the asymmetries found in other paradigms; (C) processing demands and strategies inherent to the monaural technique may account in part for its limited reliability in yielding REA and for the present absence of REA among females.