EQUIVALENT PERCEPTUAL ASYMMETRIES FOR FREE VIEWING OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS IN CHIMERIC FACES

Research employing chimeric stimuli (in which smiling and neutral half -faces are paired) has demonstrated greater influence of the left half -face in determining perceived intensity of expression. To date, no st udies have examined how emotional expressions other than happiness are perceived in this format. Right-handed subjects viewed chimeric faces depicting both positive (happiness, pleasant surprise) and negative ( sadness, anger) emotions in a free vision task. Results indicated a le ft half-face bias for all four emotions, supporting the hypothesis of a greater right hemisphere role in emotional perception. The lack of d ifferences in strength of left half-face bias as a function of the spe cific emotion depicted suggests that results obtained with typical chi meric half-face paradigms can be generalized to emotions other than ha ppiness.