Dissociation between autonomic responding and verbal report in right and left hemisphere brain damage during anticipatory anxiety

Objective: To study the relationship between peripheral autonomic arousal a nd emotional experience. Background: Several theories of emotional experien ce suggest that this experience is, at least in part, related to feedback f rom the viscera and the autonomic nervous system. Method: To partially test this hypothesis and to learn if there are hemispheric asymmetries of emoti onal experience, we studied skin conductance responses (SCR) and verbal rep ort in patients with right hemisphere damage (RHD), patients with left hemi sphere damage (LHD), and normal control subjects during the anticipation of electric shocks. Results: During the shock condition, RHD and LHD subjects had smaller SCRs than did normal control subjects. Verbal report measures, however, revealed that subjects reported feeling less pleasant, more arous ed, and less in control during the shock condition compared to the no-shock condition. Unlike the SCR results, the verbal report of emotional experien ce did not differ between the patients with RHD, patients with LHD, and nor mal control subjects. Conclusions: Emotional experience is not dependent up on activation of and feedback from the autonomic nervous system.