Interhemispheric and intrahemispheric control of emotion: A focus on unilateral brain damage.

Neocortical contributions to emotional processing are discussed. First, parameters critical to the neuropsychological study of emotion are examined: interhemispheric (right, left) and intrahemispheric (anterior, posterior) factors, processing mode (expression, perception), and communication channel (facial, prosodic, lexical). Second, neuropsychological theories of emotion are described: right-hemisphere and valence hypotheses. Third, experimental studies of right-brain-damaged, left-brain-damaged, and normal adults are reviewed, on the basis of mode and channel, with a focus on stroke. Findings support right cerebral hemispheric dominance for emotion, regardless of valence and channel, and are more consistent for perception than expression. When lesion site is a factor, posterior sites are important for perception and anterior ones for expression. Finally, clinical implications are suggested for aphasia rehabilitation and for assessment of affect in neurological disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Right hemisphere emotional perception: evidence across multiple channels

Emotional perception was examined in stroke patients across 3 communication channels: facial, prosodic, and lexical. Hemispheric specialization for emotion was tested via right-hemisphere (RH) and valence hypotheses, and relationships among channels were determined. Participants were 11 right-brain-damaged (RBD), 10 left-brain-damaged (LBD), and 15 demographically matched normal control (NC) adults. Experimental measures, with analogous psychometric properties, were identification and discrimination tasks, including a range of positive and negative emotions. Nonemotional control tasks were used for each channel. For identification, RBDs were significantly impaired relative to LBDs and NCs across channels and valences, supporting the RH hypothesis. No group differences emerged for discrimination. Findings were not influenced by demographic, clinical, or control variables. Correlations among the channels were more prominent for normal than for brain-damaged groups.     

Weight differences in emotional responsiveness to proprioceptive and pictorial stimuli.

In 2 studies, 70 overweight and 76 normal-weight undergraduates were administered the Sadness and Elation components of the Nowlis Mood Adjective Check List to investigate weight differences in emotional responsiveness to proprioceptive and pictorial stimuli. Contrary to past evidence that overweight Ss are more emotional than normals, the emotional state of normal-weight Ss fluctuated with manipulations of their facial expression, whereas that of overweight Ss did not respond to these proprioceptive cues. Although research employing affectively loaded pictures found overweight Ss to be more emotionally responsive than normals to these external stimuli, no such weight differences were obtained when less polarized pictures were used in the present studies. It is concluded that even though overweight Ss were more emotionally responsive to extremely polarized external stimuli that demand perception, they were less responsive to proprioceptive stimuli derived from facial expressions and equally responsive to moderately polarized pictorial stimuli. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional experience and expression in schizophrenia and depression.

Examined the emotional responses of schizophrenic, depressed, and normal Ss and whether differences in the emotional responding of these groups depended on how emotional responses were elicited or measured. 23 blunted and 20 nonblunted schizophrenics, 17 unipolar depressed Ss, and 20 normal Ss were exposed to a series of affect-eliciting stimuli. The stimuli varied in valence (positive vs negative) and in level of cognitive demand. Ss reported their subjective experiences, and their facial expressions were videotaped. Blunted schizophrenics were the least facially expressive, although their reported subjective experiences did not differ from those of the other groups. The nonblunted schizophrenics were more responsive than the depressed Ss to the positive stimuli, although the 2 groups did not differ in their clinical ratings of affective flatness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reversal shift preferences in process and reactive schizophrenic, brain-damaged, and control group patients.

Compared process and reactive schizophrenic, brain-damaged, and normal control groups (n = 34 each) in frequency of reversal shifts in discrimination learning using the optional-shift paradigm. The main hypothesis that reactive schizophrenics, like normal adults, would show a stronger preference for reversal shifts than would process Ss was supported. Results show that significantly more reactive (68%) than process (44%) Ss made reversal shifts. Significantly more brain-damaged and reactive schizophrenic Ss showed reversal shift preferences when color was learned initially rather than form, while such initial concept preferences were not found in the process schizophrenic or normal control Ss. Previous findings in discrimination learning with pathological groups are discussed in the context of these findings. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The validity of a visual searching task as an indicator of brain damage.

Required 17 brain-damaged patients, 17 non-brain-damaged psychiatric patients, and 17 nonpatient normal controls to perform a visual search. The task discriminated among the Ss at a statistically significant level. Using an optimal cut-off point, the task was 94.1% accurate in differentiating between brain-damaged and normal Ss and 79.4% accurate in differentiating between psychiatric and brain-damaged Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in perspectives of disability among patients, staff, and relatives during rehabilitation of brain injury.

Studied retrospectively changes in behavioral competency ratings of staff, patients, and relatives over the course of an intensive rehabilitation program for 3 groups of 28 seriously brain-damaged patients (aged 19–44 yrs). Group 1 included patients with perspectives similar to those of their social environment. They had more initial emotional distress and showed nonsignificantly less neuropsychological impairment than did Ss in Groups 2 and 3, who greatly underestimated their impairments compared to staff and relative ratings. Ratings of Group 2 Ss became better aligned with staff members and relatives' perspectives at discharge, while Group 3 showed increased divergence from staff and relative ratings. By discharge, Group 1 had reduced emotional distress, while distress increased for Groups 2 and 3. Alignment among perceived behavioral competency ratings was not related to vocational outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multichannel responses to an interpersonal stressor: Interrelationships among facial display, heart rate, self-report of emotion, and threat appraisal.

60 undergraduates were exposed to a potent, provocative interpersonal stressor while facial displays of emotion were unobtrusively videotaped and heart rate was continuously monitored. Following the stressor situation, Ss completed the Differential Emotions Scale and a questionnaire designed to assess S's appraisal of threat. The video-taped facial expressions were coded by 13 naive judges to assess the intensity of the expression displayed. Minimally expressive Ss reported experiencing more guilt, displayed a significant heart rate increase, and evaluated the situation as more threatening than did the expressive Ss. Results are consistent with aspects of a discharge model of emotion that predict an inverse relationship between overt emotional displays and physiological reactivity in response to an emotional stressor. Findings argue against a facial-feedback hypothesis. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal pragmatics following unilateral stroke: Emotional content and valence.

Verbal pragmatic aspects of discourse production were examined in 16 right brain-damaged (RBD), 16 left brain-damaged (LBD), and 16 normal control right-handed adults. The facilitation effect of emotional content, valence hypothesis, and relationship between pragmatics and emotion were evaluated. Participants produced monologues while recollecting emotional and nonemotional experiences. Transcribed monologues were rated for appropriateness on 6 pragmatic features: conciseness, lexical selection, quantity, relevancy, specificity, and topic maintenance. Overall, brain-damaged groups were rated as significantly less appropriate than normals. Consistent with the facilitation effect, emotional content enhanced pragmatic performance of LBD aphasic participants yet suppressed performance of RBD participants. Contrary to the valence hypothesis, RBD participants were more impaired for positive emotions and LBD participants for negative emotions. Pragmatic appropriateness was not strongly correlated with a measure of emotional intensity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Protective buffering and emotional desynchrony among spousal caregivers of cancer patients.

Objective: To examine protective buffering and emotional desynchrony among spousal caregivers of cancer survivors. Design: Repeated measures; 42 caregivers engaged in 2 videotaped, oral emotional expression exercises: 1 in the presence of their patient and 1 in the absence of their patient. Main Outcome Measures: Felt emotion (self-report) and expressed emotion (lexical expression or words uttered and coder-derived facial expression). Other measures assessed mental and physical health, dyadic satisfaction, and dispositional emotional inhibition. Results: Protective buffering differed by communicative channel (lexical vs. facial). Caregivers' facial expressions were more positive when the patient was present versus absent. In contrast, the valence of caregivers' words did not differ per patient presence. Facial protective buffering was unrelated to health and dyadic outcomes. Lexical protective buffering was inversely related to both caregiver and patient marital satisfaction. Dispositional emotional inhibition was inversely related to caregiver mental health and marital satisfaction. Desynchrony occurred when the patient was present but was counter to prediction; felt emotion was more positive than expressed emotion. Conclusion: Results provide behavioral evidence of facial protective buffering. To the extent that lexical buffering occurs, it poses a dyadic risk, and chronic inhibition poses both psychological and dyadic risks. Future research is needed to refine the operational definition of desynchrony and to examine the biopsychosocial sequelae of buffering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level versus pattern of neuropsychological performance among schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged patients.

Differences in both mean level and pattern of neuropsychological test performance were examined among groups of carefully screened schizophrenic and acute and chronic diffusely brain-damaged patients (24 Ss in each group). This was done separately for the WAIS subtests and the 12 average impairment rating (AIR) variables derived from the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. The schizophrenics performed at a significantly higher level than brain-damaged Ss on both test batteries. Subsequent deficit pattern analyses and coefficients of profile pattern similarity revealed very little difference among the 3 groups in their patterns of performance on the WAIS and AIR batteries. Discriminant function analyses were employed to estimate the diagnostic utility of level vs pattern of performance on the WAIS and AIR in discriminating schizophrenics from brain-damaged Ss. Results suggest that mean level of performance can be used to discriminate clearly defined schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged groups, but that pattern analysis offers little additional information. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes in verbal-number production: Inferences from the performance of brain-damaged subjects.

Presents a model of the cognitive processes involved in the spoken production of verbal numbers (e.g., 13,402), based on single-case studies of 2 brain-damaged Ss (a 66-yr-old man and a 22-yr-old woman) with number production deficits. It is suggested that verbal-number production involves the generation of a syntactic frame that constitutes a plan for the production of the appropriate sequence of words. The syntactic frame specifies each to-be-retrieved word in terms of a number-lexical class (i.e., ones, teens, or tens) and a position within that class. These class/position-within-class specifications guide the retrieval of lexical representations from a production lexicon that is partitioned into functionally distinct ones, teens, and tens classes. The rationale for, and advantages of, using patterns of impaired performance as a basis for drawing inferences about normal cognition are discussed. Case histories and language assessments of Ss are appended. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory correlates of dysphasic language disturbances.

Compared the MMPI performances of 15 male dysphasic brain-damaged adults with the performances of 15 matched control brain-damaged Ss without specific language impairment. A significant overall difference on the 9 clinical scales combined was shown by multivariate analysis, with higher scores obtained by dysphasic Ss. Further univariate analysis showed significantly higher scores on the Pd and Sc scales. Results are discussed in terms of (a) evidence for a closer relation between MMPI variables and behavioral measures than between MMPI variables and neurological measures of lesion laterality, and (b) the interpretive limitations implied by uncritical transference of MMPI findings based on psychiatric patients and normals to patients with central nervous system lesions. The need for validation studies investigating social behavior correlates of MMPI results in brain-damaged samples is emphasized. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social presence, facial feedback, and emotion.

To test whether facial expressions regulate the expressers' emotional experience, 59 high school and college students smelled pleasant and disgusting odors while reacting to them spontaneously, with a facial pose indicating that the odors were pleasant, or with a facial pose indicating that they were disgusting. In a result that supported the facial feedback hypothesis, Ss evaluated the odors consistently with their facial poses, but the odors themselves had a far greater impact on evaluations than did posing instructions. To test whether spontaneous and deceptive emotional expressions would be more effective as communication if the expresser were in the presence of another rather than alone, Ss smelled odors when they were alone or when seated next to another naive S who could not see them. Contrary to prediction, Ss were less successful facial communicators in the presence of another, as assessed by 7 undergraduate judges. In this condition they communicated their evaluations less when they were spontaneously reacting to the odors and leaked their evaluations more when they were trying to hide their expressions. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of verbal and facial display rules.

144 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th graders listened to 8 stories designed to elicit either prosocial or self-protective display rules. Ss were asked to predict and explain what the protagonists would say and what facial expressions the protagonists would make in response to the emotion-laden situations. Findings indicate that Ss' knowledge of how and when to control emotional displays increased between 1st and 5th grade but then leveled off. Ss understood verbal display rules better than facial display rules, and they understood prosocial display rules better than self-protective ones. They sometimes failed to realize when other people would wish to regulate their emotional expressions. Findings are discussed in terms of the socialization of emotional displays, particularly the greater pressure placed on children to control verbal expression more than facial expression and to learn more prosocial than self-protective display rules. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of facial response in the experience of emotion.

Facial expression and emotional stimuli were varied orthogonally in a 3?×?4 factorial design to test whether facial expression is necessary or sufficient to influence emotional experience. 123 undergraduates watched a film eliciting fear, sadness, or no emotion while holding their facial muscles in the position characteristic of fear or sadness or in an effortful but nonemotional grimace; those in a 4th group received no facial instructions. The Ss believed that the study concerned subliminal perception and that the facial positions were necessary to prevent physiological recording artifacts. The films had powerful effects on reported emotions, the facial expressions none. Correlations between facial expression and reported emotion were zero. Sad and fearful Ss showed distinctive patterns of physiological arousal. Facial expression also tended to affect physiological responses in a manner consistent with an effort hypothesis. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The rotation of drawings by brain-damaged patients.

2 hypotheses were tested with the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and the Drawing Version of the Block Design Rotation Test: (1) Brain-damaged patients rotate significantly more than non-brain-damaged patients, and (2) The factors influencing rotation in the blocks test would be the same in the drawing version. Ss consisted of 20 brain-damaged patients, 25 non-brain-damaged psychiatric patients, and a control group of 25 normal persons. It was found that rotation effects in a drawing version of a task requiring the copying of designs discriminated between brain-damaged and non-brain-damaged Ss. The relative influence of the factors affecting the appearance of the rotation effect in all Ss was shown to be different in the drawing version than in the blocks version. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facial signs of emotional experience.

35 right-handed White females (18–35 yrs) viewed positive and stress-inducing motion picture films and then reported on their subjective experience. Spontaneous facial expressions provided accurate information about more specific aspects of emotional experience than just the pleasant vs unpleasant distinction. The facial action coding system (P. Ekman and W. V. Friesen, 1978) isolated a particular type of smile that was related to differences in reported happiness between Ss who showed this action and Ss who did not, to the intensity of happiness, and to which of 2 happy experiences was reported as happiest. Ss who showed a set of facial actions hypothesized to be signs of various negative affects reported experiencing more negative emotion than Ss who did not show these actions. How much these facial actions were shown was related to the reported intensity of negative affect. Specific facial actions associated with the experience of disgust are identified. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised intersubtest scatter in brain-damaged patients: A comparison with the standardization sample.

Assessed the validity of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS—R) intersubtest scatter (as measured by the scaled score range and profile variability index) as an indication of cognitive impairment due to brain dysfunction. Ss were 216 brain-damaged men with means for age, education, and Full Scale IQ of 54.54 yrs (SD?=?14.56), 11.58 yrs (SD?=?2.53), and 85.65 (SD?=?11.02), respectively. The scatter indexes for brain-damaged Ss were compared with those of the WAIS—R standardization sample. Results indicate that intersubtest scatter among brain-damaged patients with Full Scale IQs ≤109 is not greater than for "normal" persons with similar IQs. Likewise, the number of patients at different ability levels with abnormal scatter was highly similar to that for the standardization sample. Interpretation of marked intersubtest variability as a sign of brain damage appears unwarranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in test performance between brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical patients.

Gave 18 white male hospitalized patients from each of 3 diagnostic categories (brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical) a battery of 9 psychological tests, including 5 from the Halstead Impairment Index, the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, the Trail Making Test (R. Reitan), and 2 tests from the WAIS. 16 measures were obtained, and the 3 groups of Ss were compared on each. The performance of the brain-damaged was significantly inferior to the medical patients on 14 of the 16 measures, and to the schizophrenics on 9 of the 16. There were no significant differences between the schizophrenics and the medical group on any of the 16 measures. When the scores on the 4 different tests were combined into Z scores, 78% of the brain-damaged, 67% of the schizophrenics, and 78% of the medical Ss were correctly diagnosed for presence or absence of brain damage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)