Sing to your left ear and speak to your right. Your right ear hears differently than your left.

Your right ear is better than your left ear at receiving sounds from speech, whereas your left ear is more sensitive to sounds of music and song, according to American researchers behind a study of the hearing in 3,000 newborns.

It has long been known that the right and left halves of the brain register sounds differently because of differences in the brain cells in each side. But the results from the study indicate that the ears play a much more important part than previously believed.

"We always assumed that our left and right ears worked exactly the same way. As a result, we tended to think it didn't matter which ear was impaired in a person. Now we see that it may have profound implications for the individual's speech and language development," said the leader of the study, Yvonne Sininger of University of California at Los Angeles.

The scientists inserted tiny probes into the babies' ears that emitted two different types of sounds and measured the amplified vibrations.

Source: www.ucla.edu and www.channelnewsasia.com