You hear better in your right ear: Study

The researchers, through three different tests, found out that people processed ‘better’ information when messages were conveyed to them in their right ear.

Scientists from the University of Gabriele D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy, conducted a study, which said that most people prefer to be addressed in their right ear and are more likely to do a favor when the request is received in that particular ear.

Three experiments undertaken for the study
For the first experiment, researchers Luca Tommasi and Daniele Marzoli observed 286 people in a club, talking, with loud music blaring in the background. It was observed that 72 percent of interactions took place on the right side of the listeners.

For the second experiment, the researchers approached 160 people visiting clubs, and muttered some almost muted, meaningless sentences. They then waited for the people to turn their heads around and offer either their left or right ear. Majority of the people put their right ear forward.

For the third experiment, the researchers intentionally asked 176 people from the club for a cigarette in either their right or left ear. They got far more than what they wanted when they addressed the right ear directly.

Reason behind right ear preference
Researchers believe that the reason behind this inclination is that the left side of brain, which responds to the right ear, is known for better processing of the message and receives them in a slightly more amenable way.

Professor Sophie Scott, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College, London, agrees with the above findings and says, "The other side of the brain (i.e. the right side), is more involved in things such as interpreting emotion and that is why we have these findings.

"We can also see this tendency when people use the phone, most will naturally hold it to their right ear.”

"Our studies corroborate the idea of a common ancestry in humans and other species of lateralized behavior during social interactions, not only for species-specific vocal communication, but also for affective responses," wrote the study authors.

This tendency of hearing with the right ear is also seen in rats, harpy eagles, Japanese macaques, sea lions and dogs.

The findings were published recently online in the journal Naturwissenschaften – a weekly publication of the Advances in the Natural Sciences, Medicine and Technology.