Ratings of emotion in faces are influenced by the visual field to which stimuli are presented*1 (original) (raw)
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Ratings of emotion in faces are influenced by the visual field to which stimuli are presented
Brain and Cognition, 1987
This experiment was designed to assess the differential impact of initially presenting affective information to the left versus right hemisphere on both the perception of and response to the input. Nineteen right-handed subjects were presented with faces expressing happiness and sadness. Each face was presented twice to each visual field for an 8-set duration. The electro-oculogram (EOG) was monitored and fed back to subjects to train them to keep their eyes focused on the central fixation point as well as to eliminate trials confounded by eye All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
Motivation and Emotion, 1979
This study investigated the relationship between hemispheric preference and communication accuracy o f facial affect. Hemispheric preference was determined by rating conjugate lateral eye movements. Forty right-handed females were classified: lO right-movers (left hemisphere preference), 15 left-movers (right hemisphere preference), and 15 bl'directionals (no hemispheric preference). Subjects were shown emotionally "'loaded" slides portraying happiness, fear, and disgust and their videotaped facial expressions were independently rated for accuracy. It was predicted that negative emotions involved right hemisphere activity and negative affect involved left hemisphere activity. As expected, it was found that left-movers were significantly better than right-movers at nonverbally communicating disgust and fear; hemispheric preference was unrelated to expression of happiness. The accuracy scores of the bidirectionals generally fell in between those of the left-movers and those of the right-movers. The results were discussed in reference to the differential lateralization of positive and negative emotions. There has been considerable evidence indicating right hemisphere specialization for the processing of emotional information (Davidson & Schwartz, 1975; Schwartz, Davidson, & Maer, 1975; Gardner, King, Flare, & Silverman, 1975). Specifically, prior research has demonstrated a strong relationship between the right hemisphere and nonverbal perceptual abilities (e.g., 'This study was conducted as a senior research project by the first author under the supervision of the second author.
Left hemisphere representations of emotional facial expressions
Neuropsychologia, 1996
Researchers have suggested that the right hemisphere is superior at processing emotional facial expressions because it contains stored perceptual 'templates' of facial expressions. We tested each hemisphere of a split-brain patient on two tasks involving emotional facial expressions. Both hemispheres performed equally well and significantly above chance matching facial expressions with emotion words. The subject's right hemisphere consistently performed well judging whether two facial expressions were the same or different. His left hemisphere performed poorly on this discrimination task at first, but showed a sharp improvement when the instructions were changed slightly, emphasizing verbal labels for the facial expressions. Results suggest that 'facial expression templates' may not be stored only on the right.
An extensive literature credits the right hemisphere with dominance for processing emotion. Conflicting literature finds left hemisphere dominance for positive emotions. This conflict may be resolved by attending to processing stage. A divided output (bimanual) reaction time paradigm in which response hand was varied for emotion (angry; happy) in Experiments 1 and 2 and for gender (male; female) in Experiment 3 focused on response to emotion rather than perception. In Experiments 1 and 2, reaction time was shorter when right-hand responses indicated a happy face and left-hand responses an angry face, as compared to reversed assignment. This dissociation did not obtain with incidental emotion (Experiment 3). Results support the view that response preparation to positive emotional stimuli is left lateralized.
An examination of the right-hemisphere hypothesis of the lateralization of emotion
Brain and Cognition, 2005
The Right-Hemisphere Hypothesis posits that emotional stimuli are perceived more efficiently by the right hemisphere than by the left hemisphere. The current research examines this hypothesis by examining hemispheric asymmetries for the conscious and unconscious perception of emotional stimuli. Negative, positive, and neutral words were presented for 17 ms to one visual field or the other. Conscious perception was measured by using a subjective report-of-awareness measure reported by participants on each trial. Unconscious perception was measured using an ''exclusion task,'' a form of word-stem-completion task. Consistent with previous research, there was a right-hemisphere advantage for the conscious perception of negative information. As in previous studies, this advantage for conscious perception occurred at the expense of unconscious perception. Specifically, there was a right-hemisphere inferiority for the unconscious perception of negative information. Contrary to the predictions of the Right-Hemisphere Hypothesis, there were no hemispheric asymmetries for the perception of positive emotional information, thus suggesting that the Right-Hemisphere Hypothesis may not be applicable to all behavioral studies.
Perceptual and conceptual organization of facial emotions: Hemispheric differences
Brain and Cognition, 1984
Patients with lesions to either the right or left hemisphere and control subjects were asked to judge the similarity of pairs of photographs of a person displaying different emotions, and of pairs of emotion words. The results were submitted to a multidimensional scaling analysis. Right-hemisphere-damaged subjects were found to be more impaired at perceiving facial emotions than were left-hemispheredamaged subjects or controls, and this impairment was not confined to the perception of a subset of facial emotions nor to judging emotional valence (Pleasantness versus Unpleasantness). Rather, subtle impairments in perceiving a wide range of facial emotions were found, mostly concerning differentiation of the Positive-Negative and Attention-Rejection dimensions, and concerning the strategies the subjects used to make their judgments. The right-hemisphere-damaged subjects performed comparably to controls in their ratings of emotion words, suggesting that their ability to conceptualize emotional states was intact and that their impairment was strictly in the perception of emotion. Although a number of recent studies have suggested that the right cerebral hemisphere plays a crucial role in perceiving facial expressions of emotion, the exact nature of its role is unclear. Three hypotheses have been advanced: (a) that the right hemisphere is superior to the left
Hemispheric asymmetries in processing emotional expressions
Neuropsychologia, 1983
Three experiments are reported on visual field asymmetries in the perception ofemotional expressions on the face. In experiment 1 full faces expressing six different emotions were presented unilaterally for exposure durations, allowing the subject to judge whether the facial expression was positive or negative. Right-handed subjects judged all expressions except happiness as more negative when presented in the left visual field (LVF). This effect was smaller for left-handers and was absent in left-handers who use the non-inverted writing posture. In experiment II subjects were presented with happy, sad and "mixed" chimeric faces, projected to each visual field, for durations allowing only the detection of the existence of a face. LVF presentations produced greater differential rating of emotional valence for the three types of stimuli. In experiment III chimeric faces containing happy and sad expressions were presented unilaterally for durations allowing the subject to perceive the existence of two expressions on the face. The subjects were required to decide whether the mood expressed in the face was predominantly negative or positive. RVF presentations resulted in a bias toward positive judgments. These results indicate right hemispheric superiority for the perception and processing of emotional valence and a left hemispheric perceptual bias toward positive aspects of emotional stimuli.
Emotion, 2019
It is widely agreed that hemispheric asymmetries in emotional face perception exist. However, the mechanisms underlying this lateralization are not fully understood. In the present study, we tested whether (a) these asymmetries are driven by the low spatial frequency content of images depicting facial expressions, and (b) whether the effects differed depending on whether the emotional facial expressions were clearly visible or hidden (i.e., embedded in low spatial frequencies). The manipulation sheds light on the contribution of cortical and subcortical routes to emotional processing mechanisms. We prepared both unfiltered (broadband) and 'hybrid' faces. Within the latter, different bands of spatial frequency content from images of two different expressions were combined (i.e., low frequencies from an emotional image combined with high frequencies from a neutral image). We presented these broadband and hybrid images using the free-viewing emotional chimeric faces task (ECFT) in which two images are presented above and below fixation and asked participants to report which of the two mirror reversed images appeared more emotional. As predicted, the results showed that only broadband expressions produced the well-known left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) bias across all basic emotions. For hybrid images, only happiness revealed a significant LVF/RH bias. These results suggest that low spatial frequency content of emotional facial expressions, which activates the magnocellular pathway in subcortical structures and bypassing cortical visual processing, is not generally sufficient to induce an LVF bias under free-viewing conditions where participants deny explicitly seeing the emotion, suggesting that the LVF bias in ECFT is primarily cortically mediated.
Neuropsychologia, 1988
The purpose of this report was to examine facial asymmetry during the expression of positive and negative emotions. In addition, methodological factors in the study of facial asymmetry were considered. Subjects were 16 neurologically-healthy right-handed adult males, videotaped while posing eight facial expressions (positive and negative) under two conditions (verbal command and visual imitation). Separate asymmetry ratings of the two sides of the face were made by judges viewing normal or mirror-reversed versions of the videotape. There were no effects of valence. condition, or videotape orientation on the asymmetry ratings. and, in general, expressions were produced significantly more intensely on the left than the right side of the face. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the right cerebral hemisphere is dominant for the expression of facial emotion of both valences.