Two experiments extend the ecological validity of tests of hemispheric interaction in three novel ways. First, we present a broad class of naturalistic stimuli that have not yet been used in tests of hemispheric interaction. Second, we test whether probable differences in complexity within the class of stimuli are supported by outcomes from…

This study examined predictions based upon the right hemisphere (RH) model, the valence-arousal model, and a recently proposed integrated model (Killgore & Yurgelun-Todd, 2007) of emotion processing by testing immediate recall and recognition memory for positive, negative, and neutral verbal stimuli among 35 right-handed women. Building upon…

The neuropsychological literature on the processing of emotions in Parkinson's disease (PD) reveals conflicting evidence about the role of the basal ganglia in the recognition of facial emotions. Hence, the present study had two objectives. One was to determine the extent to which the visual processing of emotions and objects differs in PD. The…

Attention deactivates the inferior medial prefrontal cortex (IMPC), but it is uncertain if emotions can attenuate this deactivation. To test the extent to which common emotions interfere with attention, we measured changes of a blood flow index of brain activity in key areas of the IMPC with positron emission tomography (PET) of labeled water…

Identifying threatening expressions is a significant social perceptual skill. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are impaired in social interaction, show deficits in face and emotion processing, show amygdala abnormalities and display a disadvantage in the perception of social threat. According to the anger superiority hypothesis,…

The human brain is not a passive organ simply waiting to be activated by external stimuli. Instead, we propose that the brain continuously employs memory of past experiences to interpret sensory information and predict the immediately relevant future. The basic elements of this proposal include analogical mapping, associative representations and…

Right hemispheric dominance in unconscious emotional processing has been suggested, but remains controversial. This issue was investigated using the subliminal affective priming paradigm combined with unilateral visual presentation in 40 normal subjects. In either left or right visual fields, angry facial expressions, happy facial expressions, or…

Accumulating evidence suggests the existence of a processing bias in favor of threat-related stimulation in anxious individuals. Using behavioral and ERP measures, the present study investigated the deployment of attention to face stimuli with different emotion expressions in high-anxious and low-anxious participants. An attention-shifting…

Affective and Neutral Tasks (faces with negative or neutral content, with different lighting and orientation) requiring reaction time judgments of poser identity were administered to 32 participants. Speed and accuracy were better for the Affective than Neutral Task, consistent with literature suggesting facilitation of performance by affective…