New Brain-Test App, University of Bergen Study

Smartphones offer a wealth of possibilities for psychological research. A new study shows that an iPhone app yields as reliable results as laboratory tests. Two years ago, researcher Josef Bless was listening to music on his phone when he suddenly had an idea. "I noticed that the sounds of the different instruments were distributed differently between the ears, and it struck me that this was very similar to the tests we routinely use in our laboratory to measure brain function. In dichotic listening, each ear is presented with a different syllable at the same time (one to the left and one to the right ear) and the listener has to say which syllable seems clearest. The test indicates which side of the brain is most active during language processing," Bless explains.

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