Need a Favor? Talk To My Right Ear

Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that scientists have found that if you want to get someone to do something, ask them in their right ear. Known as the 'right ear advantage,' scientists believe it is because information received through the right ear is processed by the left hand side of the brain which is more logical and better at deciphering verbal information than the right side of the brain. 'Talk into the right ear you send your words into a slightly more amenable part of the brain,' say researchers. The team, led by Dr. Luca Tommasi and Daniele Marzoli from the University of Chieti in central Italy, observed the behavior of hundreds of people in three nightclubs across the city where they intentionally addressed 176 people in either their right or their left ear when asking for a cigarette. They obtained significantly more cigarettes when they made their request in a person's right ear compared with their left. 'These results seem to be consistent with the hypothesized specialization of right and left hemispheres,' say researchers. 'We can also see this tendency when people use the phone, most will naturally hold it to their right ear.'"

Comments

Re:I hold my phone to my right ear

[bootz15]

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

Re:I hold my phone to my left ear

[davewalthall]

I've done this experiment! When you whisper into the deaf ear asking for cigarettes, you don't get nearly as many as when you whisper into the hearing ear. The paper will be coming out in JAMA next month.