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Children below 9 years use both verbal cues and lateralized cues to orient their attention in an emotional dichotic listening task

The current study aimed to demonstrate that children below 9 years of age efficiently orient their auditory attention with both verbal cues and lateralized cues to identify emotional stimuli. The use of emotional stimuli is an optimal condition according to the assumption that a multi-component task calling on different resources from the two cerebral hemispheres is easier than a multi-component task requiring resources from the same hemisphere. A sample of 103 right-handed children from 7 to 12 years of age was required to identify emotional speech made up of pseudowords preceded by a binaural verbal cue or by a lateralized tone cue. As expected, we observed better performance for the skilled ear (i.e., the left ear for emotional processing) and an improving effect of verbal cues. According to our success criterion (mean correct report rates significantly different from chance), an efficient control of orienting attention was observed in all groups of children. This means that children from 7 to 8 years of age were able to efficiently orient their attention to identify emotional stimuli. Results are discussed in relation to the hemispheric lateralization of emotions.