Science Daily is reporting that:

We humans prefer to be addressed in our right ear and are more likely to perform a task when we receive the request in our right ear rather than our left. In a series of three studies, looking at ear preference in communication between humans, Dr. Luca Tommasi and Daniele Marzoli from the University "Gabriele d'Annunzio" in Chieti, Italy, show that a natural side bias, depending on hemispheric asymmetry in the brain, manifests itself in everyday human behavior.

In one of the studies, the researchers intentionally addressed 176 clubbers in either their right or their left ear when asking for a cigarette. They obtained significantly more cigarettes when they spoke to the clubbers' right ear compared with their left.

Good to know. Want something, ask the correct ear.

Curiously, when I am talking on the phone, I listen exclusively with my left ear. Always.


From with birds
Annette Marie Hyder
Previously published in Newspaper Tree

you are the seashell i put to my ear
to hear the roar of seas
i have never seen–
your voice is the wind winding through
pearl chambers and pushing
the tide like an unsaid wish into my ear–
salt rims and bird cries echo
the rise and fall