Neuropsychological Consequences of the Exposure of a Group of Telephonists to Unusual Auditory Stimuli

Abstract

A group of 144 right-handed telephone operators reported a number of psychosomatic complaints after long-lasting unusual presentation of auditory stimuli to their left ears during working hours. The main finding of the study of their hemisphere organisation for verbal stimuli, as measured by dichotic listening to pairs of digits, is that the group displayed a clear shift of the right-ear preference to the left and differed significantly from the control group of 40 persons. The finding was verified by a follow-up study conducted eight years later.