Hemispheric Differences in Recognition of Facial Expressions: A VHF-Study of Negative, Positive, and Neutral Emotions

Abstract

The present study was concerned with a tachistoscopic investigation of asymmetry of recognition of different facial emotional expressions. Twenty-eight subjects had nine different drawings of facial expressions (either positive, negative, or neutral in emotional content) presented either to the left or right visual half-field. Recognition of the correct face was made for each stimulus-presentation. The results showed overall better recognition for presentations in the left half-field (LVF) (i.e., right hemisphere) compared to right half-field (RVF) (i.e., left hemisphere) presentations. Furthermore, while all three emotional categories were recognized about equally well in the right half-field, positive emotional expressions were significantly better than the neutral and negative categories when presented to the left half-field. The results are discussed in relation to previous findings of cerebral asymmetry in processing of emotional facial expressions.

Key Words:

• facial expression
• hemisphere differences
• emotions