Reading one of the many enlightening articles on Cracked.com (6 Factors That Influence Who You Have Sex With), I came across an intriguing passage regarding hearing:
The brain is a really complex organ. But after decades of studying it, most psychologists and neurologists feel comfortable making a couple of generalizations -- namely, that the left side of your brain handles verbal information and is tuned in to positive emotions, while the right hemisphere concentrates on nonverbal stimuli and more negative emotions. They also know that information that goes in your left ear is handled by the right side of the brain.
Armed with this information, psychologists in Italy devised a study that tested how the different sides of your brain process information. What they found is that requests are 50 percent more successful when heard from the right side than the left. In the study, a woman approached people at a club and asked for a cigarette, leaning in to one side or another. Exactly double the number of people obliged her when she asked on their right. In a dating situation, not only could the chances of someone saying yes to a date hinge on who is standing where, but the emotional aspect could come into play as well. Sure, you might agree to go out with someone who talked in your left ear, but your first impression might be to associate him with more negative emotions.
Being deaf in my right ear my first impression of everyone is associated with negative emotions. I've never really thought about it too much before, but I'm now convinced that profound unilateral hearing loss has shaped my personality more than I had ever given it credit for. It's responsible for a whole host of winning attributes.
Maybe it's some really bad science and Ben Goldacre can tell me where I've gone wrong, but it's nice to find things to blame for all the bitterness and hatred, however fanciful it may be.
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