THE RECOGNITION OF EMOTIONS FROM THE FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DIVIDED VISUAL HALF FIELD PRESENTATIONS IN SCHIZOPHRENIC AND DEPRESSIVE PATIENTS

Twenty schizophrenics, 20 depressives, and 20 normal controls were asked to identify positive and negative emotional expressions of faces tachistoscopically presented to the left and/or right visual hemifields. Results replicated the frequently cited recognition advantage for emotional stimuli presented in the left visual hemifield (right hemispheric processing). A significant reduction in decoding advantage was observed in both patient groups, which could be explained in terms of an interhemispheric disconnection syndrome in schizophrenics and depressives. Bilateral findings in particular tend to support this hypothesis, since they revealed that both cerebral hemispheres processed contrary information simultaneously.