Neuropsychological Factors Associated with Perceptual Biases for Emotional Chimeric Faces

Abstract

Mechanisms underlying hemispace biases for free-field judgments of emotional intensity in chimeric faces were explored. The Levy et al. chimeric faces task (1983b) was examined in relationship to relevant neuropsychological measures (emotional, imaginal, ocular). Forty-four normal adults were administered a test battery including measures of chimeric face perception, lateral eye movements to nonemotional and emotional instructions, image generation, and ocular dominance (“eyedness”). Overall, subjects showed a significant left-sided bias for judging chimeric faces and for producing lateral eye movements to emotional instructions. Asymmetries for chimeric face perception were significantly correlated with asymmetries for the location of self-generated images in space. When task modalities were examined, there was a specific relationship between chimeric face perception and tactile processing on the other neuropsychological measures.

Key Words:

• chimeric faces
• perception
• laterality
• emotion
• imagery
• ocular dominance