Stereo

I like to listen to music while I work. I usually go for things with complex harmonies and a good, strong rhythm. With that broad base, my musical preferences span several genres, so there isn't much I don't like.

If the work I'm doing is manual labor, then I want my music to have lyrics that either tell me a story or let me sing along--general rock, Broadway, a little bit of country. If the work I'm doing requires thought, then I prefer to stick with instrumental stuff--techno, classical, big band, etc. Most of the time, I have speakers playing the music from my computer, radio, or CD player, but I'll occasionally use headphones. In any case, the music enters my brain through both sides of my head, and I know how to keep doing my work even with that stimulus coming in.

At my job, I'm allowed to listen to music, but I have to use headphones. I find it funny that the policy states I'm to use "headphones" (plural) when it really means just one headphone. I can only listen to music in one ear. That didn't bother me. I tuned the balance of the work computer's audio all to one side, creating monophonic sound instead of stereophonic, and put the earbud into my left ear, which was simply closest to the computer at the time. I continued using it that way for several weeks.

Today, my left ear was irritated for reasons I don't yet know, so I tried to switch the earbud to my right ear while I processed my paperwork, and I suddenly found that I could not focus! My ability to multitask with music and documents was paralyzed until I put the earbud back into the left ear. Of course, then I was stuck thinking about that for a while.

Did it have anything to do with the sides of the brain? Did one half process the music while the other processed the paperwork, and did I just happen to pick the sides correctly the first time around? Doubtful. The research I've read says that the auditory nerves send sound from each ear to both sides of the brain.

What's more likely is that I had become accustomed to music from one side. Moving it to the other side was a significant change in the source of the stimulus, dramatically changing my work environment on the sensory level, even though I knew it was the same music coming from the same place as it had been for the past few weeks.

I have to wonder how long it would take for me to adapt--to get my performance level back up to what it is now--if I made the switch from one ear to the other. Too bad I'm not being paid to do that kind of research on myself...