Dichotic Fused Words Test

The "Dichotic Fused Words Test" (DFWT) is a modified version of the dichotic listening test.

It was originally explored by Johnson et al. (1977) but in the early 80's Wexler and Hawles (1983) modified the test to ascertain more accurate data for hemispheric specialization of language function. In the DFWT, a participant is presented with pairs of monosyllabic rhymed CVC words and each word varies in the initial consonant. The significant difference in this test is "the stimuli are constructed and aligned in such a way that partial interaural fusion occurs: subjects generally experience and report only one stimulus per trial." According to Zatorre (1989), some major advantages of this method include but are not limited to "minimizing attentional factors, since the percept is unitary and localized to the midline" and "stimulus dominance effects may be explicitly calculated, and their influence on ear asymmetries assessed and eliminated." Thus, it is no surprise that Wexler and Hawles obtained a high test-retest reliability (r=0.85) in their study.