Two-channel listening to musical scales.

Ss listened to a dichotic tonal sequence consisting of the repetitive presentation of the C major scale with successive tones alternating from ear to ear. The scale was presented simultaneously in both ascending and descending form, such that when a component of the ascending scale was in one ear, a component of the descending scale was in the other, and vice versa. All Ss channeled this sequence by frequency range: no S channeled by ear of input, and none reported a full ascending or descending scale. Various illusory percepts were obtained, which varied in correlation with the handedness of the listener. Right-handers tended to perceive the upper tones of the dichotic sequence as emanating from the right earphone and the lower tones from the left, and to maintain this percept when the earphones were placed in reverse position. Left-handers as a group did not display the same localization tendency.