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Science 9 August 1974:
Vol. 185. no. 4150, pp. 537 - 539
DOI: 10.1126/science.185.4150.537
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Articles

Cerebral Dominance in Musicians and Nonmusicians

Thomas G. Bever 1 and Robert J. Chiarello 1

1 Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York 10027

Musically experienced listeners recognize simple melodies better in the right ear than the left, while the reverse is true for naive listeners. Hence, contrary to previous reports, music perception supports the hypothesis that the left hemisphere is dominant for analytic processing and the right hemisphere for holistic processing.


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