Psychometric and behavioral measures of central auditory function: the relationship between dichotic listening and digit span tasks. |
| |
Authors: | Arthur C Maerlender Deborah J Wallis Peter K Isquith |
| |
Affiliation: | Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA. Arthur.Maerlender@Dartmouth.Edu |
| |
Abstract: | We hypothesized that the Digit Span (DS) subtest and component tasks (Wechsler, 1991) would show strong relationships with a dichotic listening test (Musiek, 1983). In two sets of archival clinical data (N = 74 and N = 51) we demonstrated that: (a) individuals with central auditory deficits had lower DS scores, F(1, 72) = 7.34, p = .008; eta2 = .09; and (b) left-ear dichotic deficits impacted forward span, F(2, 48) = 8.45, p = .001. Right-ear dichotic listening performance also accounted for significant variance in digit forward span (R2 = 0.17, p = .003). While limited in scope, the studies conclude that forward but not reverse span performance is strongly related to dichotic listening, and can serve as a marker for possible central auditory deficits. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|