Facial expression during emotional monologues in unilateral stroke: an analysis of monologue segments

Emotional monologues of brain-damaged subjects were examined to determine whether interhemispheric or intrahemispheric differences exist for facial emotional expression. A special feature was the comparison of expressions produced during the initial, middle, and last segments of the monologues. Videotaped emotional and non-emotional monologues from the New York Emotion Battery (Borod, Welkowitz, & Obler, 1992) of eight right brain-damaged (RBD), eight left brain-damaged (LBD), and eight normal control (NC) subjects, with matching for demographics and lesion location, were rated. Five raters were trained to evaluate the emotional intensity and category accuracy of the facial expressions produced during these monologues. Results revealed some support for a reversed valence effect, with RBDs showing relatively less accurate performance during positive monologues. Intrahemispheric results revealed that, overall, RBDs with frontal lobe lesions showed the least intense facial expressions. Segment analysis found that individuals produced facial expressions with significantly more emotional intensity during the middle and last thirds of the monologues than during the initial third of the monologues. Findings indicate intrahemispheric as well as interhemispheric differences in facial emotional expression and suggest the utilization of the latter parts of monologues in the evaluation of emotional expression, which has potential clinical implications.