Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
May 1212:00 PM EDT
-11:59 PM EDT
Make the most of your break with the most realistic GMAT™ prep. Take up to $700 off select products.
May 1501:00 PM IST
-11:00 AM IST
Start your journey with a fully customized action plan and work with a dedicated mentor to achieve a 735+ score.
May 1810:00 AM PDT
-11:00 AM PDT
Join us in a live GMAT practice session and solve 25 challenging GMAT questions with other test takers in timed conditions, covering GMAT Quant, Data Sufficiency, Data Insights, Reading Comprehension, and Critical Reasoning questions.- May 19
12:00 PM PDT
-01:00 PM PDT
Scoring 329 on the GRE is not always about using more books, more courses, or a longer study plan. In this episode of GRE Success Talks, Ashutosh shares his GRE preparation strategy, study plan, and test-day experience, explaining how he kept his prep.... - Jun 10
06:00 AM PDT
-06:15 PM PDT
Register for the GMAT Club Virtual MBA Spotlight Fair – the world’s premier event for serious MBA candidates. This is your chance to hear directly from Admissions Directors at nearly every Top 30 MBA program..
03 Oct 2025, 20:42
Kudos
Bookmarks
Despite the bilateral nature of the human auditory system, many species, including humans, exhibit lateralized auditory processing. Certain birds, such as zebra finches, favor their right ear when listening for predators, while frogs often respond more to sounds entering their left ear during mating calls. In humans, this asymmetry is most evident in speech processing, which typically engages the left hemisphere. Less apparent, however, is the tendency to react more quickly to sounds entering the right ear. Studies indicate that people prefer to hold phones to their right ear, despite equal hearing capacity in both, suggesting a deeper neural basis for this phenomenon.
Kimura found that individuals asked to recall digits were more accurate when the numbers were presented to their right ear. She suggested that this bias reflected the dominance of the left hemisphere in language processing. However, subsequent research by Bryden proposed that environmental factors, such as handedness, might contribute to ear preference. Despite this, later studies confirmed that the right-ear advantage persisted even when such external factors were controlled, reinforcing the role of hemispheric specialization in auditory tasks and cognitive processing.
Deutsch explored whether this lateralization extended to musical perception. In her study, participants listened to melodies through headphones and were tasked with identifying pitch variations. Right-handed participants consistently performed better when the melodies were presented to the right ear. Deutsch hypothesized that this was due to the left hemisphere’s superior processing of temporal patterns, essential for rhythm and melody recognition, particularly for complex compositions or unfamiliar pieces requiring greater auditory attention.
According to the passage, Deutsch’s hypothesis suggests which of the following about the perception of melodies?
A. It is unaffected by which ear receives the auditory input.
B. It is influenced by the hemisphere that processes temporal patterns.
C. It depends more on background noise levels than on which hemisphere receives the input, a pattern that holds even for right-handed listeners.
D. It stems from the mechanics of the auditory pathway rather than brain hemispheres.
E. It shows no consistent pattern across participants, regardless of handedness.
Kimura found that individuals asked to recall digits were more accurate when the numbers were presented to their right ear. She suggested that this bias reflected the dominance of the left hemisphere in language processing. However, subsequent research by Bryden proposed that environmental factors, such as handedness, might contribute to ear preference. Despite this, later studies confirmed that the right-ear advantage persisted even when such external factors were controlled, reinforcing the role of hemispheric specialization in auditory tasks and cognitive processing.
Deutsch explored whether this lateralization extended to musical perception. In her study, participants listened to melodies through headphones and were tasked with identifying pitch variations. Right-handed participants consistently performed better when the melodies were presented to the right ear. Deutsch hypothesized that this was due to the left hemisphere’s superior processing of temporal patterns, essential for rhythm and melody recognition, particularly for complex compositions or unfamiliar pieces requiring greater auditory attention.
According to the passage, Deutsch’s hypothesis suggests which of the following about the perception of melodies?
A. It is unaffected by which ear receives the auditory input.
B. It is influenced by the hemisphere that processes temporal patterns.
C. It depends more on background noise levels than on which hemisphere receives the input, a pattern that holds even for right-handed listeners.
D. It stems from the mechanics of the auditory pathway rather than brain hemispheres.
E. It shows no consistent pattern across participants, regardless of handedness.
03 Oct 2025, 20:42
Kudos
Bookmarks
Official Solution:
Despite the bilateral nature of the human auditory system, many species, including humans, exhibit lateralized auditory processing. Certain birds, such as zebra finches, favor their right ear when listening for predators, while frogs often respond more to sounds entering their left ear during mating calls. In humans, this asymmetry is most evident in speech processing, which typically engages the left hemisphere. Less apparent, however, is the tendency to react more quickly to sounds entering the right ear. Studies indicate that people prefer to hold phones to their right ear, despite equal hearing capacity in both, suggesting a deeper neural basis for this phenomenon.
Kimura found that individuals asked to recall digits were more accurate when the numbers were presented to their right ear. She suggested that this bias reflected the dominance of the left hemisphere in language processing. However, subsequent research by Bryden proposed that environmental factors, such as handedness, might contribute to ear preference. Despite this, later studies confirmed that the right-ear advantage persisted even when such external factors were controlled, reinforcing the role of hemispheric specialization in auditory tasks and cognitive processing.
Deutsch explored whether this lateralization extended to musical perception. In her study, participants listened to melodies through headphones and were tasked with identifying pitch variations. Right-handed participants consistently performed better when the melodies were presented to the right ear. Deutsch hypothesized that this was due to the left hemisphere’s superior processing of temporal patterns, essential for rhythm and melody recognition, particularly for complex compositions or unfamiliar pieces requiring greater auditory attention.
According to the passage, Deutsch’s hypothesis suggests which of the following about the perception of melodies?
A. It is unaffected by which ear receives the auditory input.
B. It is influenced by the hemisphere that processes temporal patterns.
C. It depends more on background noise levels than on which hemisphere receives the input, a pattern that holds even for right-handed listeners.
D. It stems from the mechanics of the auditory pathway rather than brain hemispheres.
E. It shows no consistent pattern across participants, regardless of handedness.
A) Incorrect. Deutsch reported that right-handed participants detected pitch changes more accurately when the melody entered the right ear, so ear of presentation clearly mattered. Her hypothesis links this ear advantage to the processing strengths of one hemisphere, not to ear independence.
B) Correct Answer. Deutsch proposed that the left hemisphere’s strength in handling temporal patterns—crucial for rhythm and melody—explains why melodies presented to the right ear (which routes first to the left hemisphere) are perceived more accurately. The statement captures that perception of melodies is shaped by which hemisphere performs the timing analysis.
C) Incorrect. Background noise levels were investigated in Beck’s later experiments, not in Deutsch’s study. Deutsch did not test noisy conditions or compare noise effects with hemispheric input. Therefore, saying noise matters more than hemisphere misrepresents her work.
D) Incorrect. Attributing melody perception to “mechanics of the auditory pathway” echoes Beck’s alternative explanation, not Deutsch’s. She focused on hemispheric specialization rather than on peripheral pathway mechanics.
E) Incorrect. Deutsch observed a consistent pattern: right-handed listeners showed better performance through the right ear. The option claiming “no consistent pattern” directly contradicts her empirical finding.
Answer: B
Despite the bilateral nature of the human auditory system, many species, including humans, exhibit lateralized auditory processing. Certain birds, such as zebra finches, favor their right ear when listening for predators, while frogs often respond more to sounds entering their left ear during mating calls. In humans, this asymmetry is most evident in speech processing, which typically engages the left hemisphere. Less apparent, however, is the tendency to react more quickly to sounds entering the right ear. Studies indicate that people prefer to hold phones to their right ear, despite equal hearing capacity in both, suggesting a deeper neural basis for this phenomenon.
Kimura found that individuals asked to recall digits were more accurate when the numbers were presented to their right ear. She suggested that this bias reflected the dominance of the left hemisphere in language processing. However, subsequent research by Bryden proposed that environmental factors, such as handedness, might contribute to ear preference. Despite this, later studies confirmed that the right-ear advantage persisted even when such external factors were controlled, reinforcing the role of hemispheric specialization in auditory tasks and cognitive processing.
Deutsch explored whether this lateralization extended to musical perception. In her study, participants listened to melodies through headphones and were tasked with identifying pitch variations. Right-handed participants consistently performed better when the melodies were presented to the right ear. Deutsch hypothesized that this was due to the left hemisphere’s superior processing of temporal patterns, essential for rhythm and melody recognition, particularly for complex compositions or unfamiliar pieces requiring greater auditory attention.
According to the passage, Deutsch’s hypothesis suggests which of the following about the perception of melodies?
A. It is unaffected by which ear receives the auditory input.
B. It is influenced by the hemisphere that processes temporal patterns.
C. It depends more on background noise levels than on which hemisphere receives the input, a pattern that holds even for right-handed listeners.
D. It stems from the mechanics of the auditory pathway rather than brain hemispheres.
E. It shows no consistent pattern across participants, regardless of handedness.
A) Incorrect. Deutsch reported that right-handed participants detected pitch changes more accurately when the melody entered the right ear, so ear of presentation clearly mattered. Her hypothesis links this ear advantage to the processing strengths of one hemisphere, not to ear independence.
B) Correct Answer. Deutsch proposed that the left hemisphere’s strength in handling temporal patterns—crucial for rhythm and melody—explains why melodies presented to the right ear (which routes first to the left hemisphere) are perceived more accurately. The statement captures that perception of melodies is shaped by which hemisphere performs the timing analysis.
C) Incorrect. Background noise levels were investigated in Beck’s later experiments, not in Deutsch’s study. Deutsch did not test noisy conditions or compare noise effects with hemispheric input. Therefore, saying noise matters more than hemisphere misrepresents her work.
D) Incorrect. Attributing melody perception to “mechanics of the auditory pathway” echoes Beck’s alternative explanation, not Deutsch’s. She focused on hemispheric specialization rather than on peripheral pathway mechanics.
E) Incorrect. Deutsch observed a consistent pattern: right-handed listeners showed better performance through the right ear. The option claiming “no consistent pattern” directly contradicts her empirical finding.
Answer: B
