Elsevier

Neuropsychologia

Volume 34, Issue 4, April 1996, Pages 247-261
Neuropsychologia

Face and voice expression identification in patients with emotional and behavioural changes following ventral frontal lobe damage

https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(95)00106-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Impairments in the identification of facial and vocal emotional expression were demonstrated in a group of patients with ventral frontal lobe damage who had socially inappropriate behaviour. The expression identification impairments could occur independently of perceptual impairments in facial recognition, voice discrimination, or environmental sound recognition. The face and voice expression problems did not necessarily occur together in the same patients, providing an indication of separate processing. Poor performance on both expression tests was correlated with the degree of alteration of emotional experience reported by the patients. There was also a strong positive correlation between the degree of altered emotional experience and the severity of the behavioural problems (e.g. disinhibition) found in these patients. A comparison group of patients with brain damage outside the ventral frontal lobe region, without these behavioural problems, was unimpaired on the face expression identification test, was significantly less impaired at vocal expression identification and reported little subjective emotional change. The expression identification deficits in ventral frontal patients may contribute to the abnormal behaviour seen after frontal lesions, and have implications for rehabilitation.

References (38)

  • L.X Blonder et al.

    The role of the right hemisphere in emotional communication

    Brain

    (1991)
  • L.X Blonder et al.

    Right hemisphere facial expressivity during natural conversation

    Brain Cognit.

    (1993)
  • J.C Borod et al.

    Emotional and non-emotional facial behaviour in patients with unilateral brain damage

    J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat.

    (1988)
  • P Ekman et al.

    Unmasking the Face

    (1975)
  • G Gainotti

    Emotional and psychosocial problems after brain injury

    Neuropsychol. Rehab.

    (1993)
  • M.S George et al.

    Brain regions in facial emotion recognition: An 015 PET Study

    J. Neuropsychiat. clin. Neurosci.

    (1993)
  • H.C Hopf et al.

    Localisation of emotional and volitional facial paresis

    Neurology

    (1992)
  • F.L King et al.

    Left-ear superiority in dichotic perception of vocal non-verbal sounds

    Can. J. Psychol./Rev. Can. Psychol.

    (1972)
  • B Kolb et al.

    Effective behaviour in patients with localised cortical excisions: Role of lesion site and side

    Science

    (1981)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text