People's left and right ears are never the same. Each has their own and distinct hearing abilities, reflecting, in fact, the functional asymmetry of our brain. The sounds coming from the right ear are processed by the left cerebral hemisphere and vice versa. While the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for processing non-verbal sound information, such as pitch, intensity and timbre, the preponderance of the left ear in listening to music and ambient sounds.
Unilateral deafness is defined as a hearing loss in which one ear (the good hear) hears well or nearly well, while the other has severe or profound hearing loss. If the hearing loss is severe or profound, the person hears only out of one ear.
Unilateral hearing loss can affect both children and adults and it is not uncommon. It is not known exactly how many people live with this condition, but it is estimated that 60,000 people in the United States alone have one-sided hearing loss.
In the case of children, hearing loss can be recognized from the first months of life. If the hearing impairment is mild, moderate or affects only one ear, a hearing aid can be used.
Unilateral hearing loss in adults is hearing loss in one ear. This impairment can cause difficulty in identifying the origin of sounds and the direction of voices. Sometimes, resorting to specific hearing aids (CROS) can improve listening selectivity, perceiving sounds from a microphone placed on the "deaf" ear and towards the normal hearing ear.
To define the dominant ear, we must simply pay attention to how we approach the interlocutors who are talking to us. If we turn the left cheek, the dominant ear will be the left.
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