Reactions of patients with focal cerebral lesions to success or failure

Multiple measures were used to investigate emotional reactions to card sorting in patients with focal cerebral lesions and in matched non-brain-injured controls. Spontaneous facial expressions of patients with anterior lesions were impoverished, relative to the posterior group, on a quantitative index of facial movement. This deficit did not appear to be attributable to group differences on lesion variables, or degree of cognitive deficit. There were also indications that a "non-emotional" facial-motor deficit was not the primary cause. The marked anterior deficit for facial movement was not, however, associated with equally pronounced deficits on qualitative, self-report and heart rate indices of emotional response. Right hemisphere patients differed from left hemisphere patients on only one qualitative measure of emotional reaction, but this may have been due to the stronger negative reactions of dysphasic patients. Left unilateral neglect was not associated with reduced emotional response.