THE LATERALISATION OF EMOTION: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Recent experimental investigations on patients with unilateral brain lesions and on neurologically intact people are reviewed with a view to appreciating the role of lateralised processes in emotion. Distinctions are drawn between the perception of emotion, the expression of emotion and the interaction of these two factors in studies of latéralisation. In spite of a mass of contradictory findings, and despite the interaction of structural and cognitive factors in some studies of emotion, there are some fairly robust findings. The right hemisphere seems to be specially involved in tasks requiring emotional analysis, particularly when the tone of the displayed emotion is negative. The right hemisphere, too, appears to be particularly involved in displaying some negative emotions. Among the important problems which await resolution, we do not know whether emotional events are apprehended independently of cognitive ones, nor how mood affects the “Cerebral balance of power”.