Development and Validation of a Persian Version of Dichotic Emotional Word Test

Davudazde, Atefe; Shaibanizadeh, Abdolreza; Jafari, Zahra; Fahimnia, Frazin; Haghani, Masoud

doi:10.22038/ijorl.2016.6537

Development and Validation of a Persian Version of Dichotic Emotional Word Test

Document Type : Original

Authors

¹ Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

² Rehabilitation Research Center, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

³ Department of Linguistics, Linguistics Faculty, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran.

⁴ Department of Biostatistics, School of Management and Medical Information Science, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

10.22038/ijorl.2016.6537

Abstract

Introduction:
Emotional words in comparison with neutral words have different hemispheric specialization. It is assumed that the right hemisphere has a role in processing every kind of emotional word. The objective of the present study was the development of a Persian version of the dichotic emotional word test and evaluate its validation among adult Persian speakers.

Materials and Methods:
The present study was done on 60 adults, with the age ranging from 18-30 years for both genders, who had no history of neurological disorders with normal hearing. The developed test included eight main lists; each had several dichotic emotional/ neutral pairs of words. Participants were asked to recall as many words in each list as they could after they listened to them. A content validity index was used to analyze the validity of the test.

Results:
The mean content validity index score was 0.94. The findings showed that in the left ear, emotional words were remembered more than neutral ones (P=0.007). While in the right ear, neutral words were remembered more (P=0.009). There were no significant differences in male and female scores.

Conclusion:
Dichotic emotional word test has a high content validity. The ability to remember emotional words better in the left ear supports the dominant role of the right hemisphere in emotional word perception.

Keywords

Main Subjects

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