Listening, priming and emotion under a neuroleptic drug

The authors previously found that emotional arousal increased the asymmetry of facial and other lateralised expressive behaviours. Chlorpromazine equalized the symmetry of behaviour by reducing emotional arousal rather than by blocking all behaviour. These results raise the question of whether the perception of emotion is also lateralised and similarly influenced by chlorpromazine. Sixteen student volunteers were administered placebo and 50 mg of chlorpromazine in tablet form on separate occasions two hours before carrying out two tests of lateralised perception. Dichotic recognition of positive and neutral but not negative emotional words revealed a right ear advantage. No drug effect was observed. The speed of recognition of words and nonwords was also examined following emotionally toned priming words lateralised to the visual hemifields. This task showed some parallel findings to the dichotic test but some lateralised effect of the drug was observed.