DISSOCIATION OF AUTONOMIC AND SUBJECTIVE RESPONSES TO EMOTIONAL SLIDES IN RIGHT-HEMISPHERE DAMAGED PATIENTS

Autonomic and subjective responses to emotional and neutral slides wer e studied in patients with right hemisphere damage (RHD), left hemisph ere damage (LHD) and normal controls (CON). Orienting and habituation to a series of pure tones (1000 Hz) were also examined. All subjects s howed appropriate slide recognition and there were no group difference s in subjective ratings. The CON group showed higher skin conductance responses (SCRs) to the emotional slides relative to the neutral slide s, while the RHD group showed lower SCRs to both sets of slides. The L HD group showed higher SCRs independent of slide type. The results sup port the hypothesis (HEILMAN and WATSON, Handbook of Neurology, Elsevi er Science, 1989) that emotional paucity in RHD patients may be relate d to reduced autonomic arousal. However, there were no significant dif ferences between groups in the orienting response or habituation to lo ud tones, suggesting that decreased arousal following RHD is not ubiqu itous.