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Multimodal emotion perception after anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL)
Valérie Milesi1, Sezen Cekic1, Julie Péron1
1Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland ; Neuroscience of Emotion and Affective Dynamics Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|May 20, 2014
Summary
Damage to the amygdala and surrounding regions impairs visual emotion perception. Auditory information can compensate for deficits in processing visual emotional cues, especially in multimodal contexts.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Emotion Research
Background:
- The amygdala is crucial for processing emotional information from unimodal and multimodal stimuli.
- Regions surrounding the amygdala may also be vital for integrating multimodal emotional cues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of anterior temporal lobe regions in multimodal emotion perception.
- To determine how unilateral anterior temporal lobe resections affect the processing of vocal, visual, and audiovisual emotional stimuli.
Main Methods:
- Five patients with unilateral anterior temporal lobe resections and matched controls were exposed to unimodal and audiovisual emotional stimuli.
- Participants rated the emotional intensity of angry, fearful, joyful, and neutral stimuli using visual analog scales.
Main Results:
- Patients showed impaired categorization of joyful expressions across all modalities.
- Fear perception was affected, with lower intensity ratings for visual stimuli compared to vocal and audiovisual ones.
- Lesion size significantly impacted visual emotion perception accuracy, irrespective of emotion type.
Conclusions:
- Damage to the amygdala or its connections disproportionately affects visual emotion processing compared to auditory or audiovisual processing.
- Auditory information may compensate for visual processing deficits in multimodal emotional contexts.
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