Emotional Behavior and Hemispheric Side of the Lesion

Abstract

Two groups of left (N = 80) and right (N = 80) brain-damaged patients were given a battery of neuropsychological tests, with the aim of carrying out a detailed analysis of their emotional reactions in front of failures. Behaviors denoting a catastrophic reaction , or indicating an anxious-depressive orientation of mood (anxiety reactions, bursts of tears, vocative utterances, depressed renouncements or sharp refusals to go on with the examination) were found to be statistically more frequent among left brain-damaged patients. On the contrary, symptoms denoting an opposite emotional reaction (anosognosia, minimization, indifference reactions and tendency to joke) and expressions of hate toward the paralyzed limbs were found to be significantly more frequent among patients suffering from a lesion of the minor hemisphere. The depressivecatastrophic reactions of the left brain-damaged patients were found chiefly in subjects with severe aphasia, and appeared generally after repeated failures in verbal communication. They seemed due, as Goldstein argued, to the desperate reaction of the organism, confronted with a task that it cannot face. The indifference reactions of the right hemisperic patients were significantly correlated with neglect phenomena for the opposite half of the body and of space. Indifference reactions and behaviors of neglect were considered as caused by the disorganization of the “non verbal” type of synthesis of the sensory data which is supposed to be characteristic of the minor hemisphere.