Abstract
ObjectiveThis study investigates whether there exist differences in lateralization of facial emotion processing in patients suffering from Vestibular Schwannoma (VS) based on the presence of a facial paresis and their degree of facial functioning as measured by the House Brackmann Grading scale (HBG).MethodsForty‐four VS patients, half of them with a facial paresis and half of them without a facial paresis, rated how emotive they considered images of faces showing emotion in the left versus right visual field. Stimuli consisted of faces with a neutral half and an emotional (happy or angry) half. The study had a mixed design with emotional expression (happy vs. angry) and emotional half (left vs. right visual field) of the faces as repeated measures, and facial paresis (present vs. absent) and HBG as between subjects’ factors. The visual field bias was the main dependent variable.ResultsIn line with typical findings in the normal population, a left visual field bias showed in the current sample: patients judged emotional expressions shown in the left visual field as more emotive than those shown in the right visual field. No differences in visual field bias showed based on the presence of a facial paresis nor based on patients’ HBG.ConclusionVS patients show a left visual field bias when processing facial emotion. No differences in lateralization showed based on the presence of a facial paresis or on patients’ HBG. Based on this study, facial paresis thus does not affect the lateralization of facial emotion processing in patients with VS.
Highlights
Recognizing emotions and being able to simulate them—a process generally referred to as facial mimicry—are important facets of human social functioning
We examined the role of facial functioning in hemispheric lateralization of emotion processing by comparing Vestibular Schwannoma (VS) patients with and without facial paresis, as well as by examining the association between hemispheric lateralization of emotion processing and the degree of facial dysfunction as measured by the House Brackmann Grading scale (HBG; House, 1985)
While we report a strong replication of the left visual field bias in the current patient sample, no relationship revealed between hemispheric lateralization of emotion processing and facial functioning of the current sample of patients with VS, neither with the mere presence or absence of a facial paresis nor with the degree of facial dysfunction
Summary
Recognizing emotions and being able to simulate them—a process generally referred to as facial mimicry—are important facets of human social functioning. Hemispheric lateralization of emotion processing concerns the bias people tend to show in perceiving emotional expressions shown in the left or the right visual field as more emotional, or to recognize them more accurately depending on the visual field in which they are portrayed (Bourne, 2010; Murray et al, 2015). The role of the facial muscles of the observer in relation to hemispheric lateralization has been partly examined in healthy individuals as well as patients with mild unilateral facial paralysis (Blom, Aarts, & Semin, 2019; Korb et al, 2016) First, a recent study (Blom et al, 2019) using the chimeric faces test reported typical left visual field bias on perceived emotionality, but this visual field bias did not directly emerge in facial muscle activation. If facial functioning plays an important role in this, patients’ facial functioning should be related to the visual field bias
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