Emotional and physiological responses to false feedback

The relationship between autonomic-visceral arousal and emotional experienc e is unclear. The attribution or cognitive-arousal theory of emotional expe rience posits that emotional experience is dependent on both visceral-auton omic nervous system feedback and the cognitive interpretation of the stimul us that induced this visceral activation. The finding that false cardiac fe edback can alter emotional experience suggests that it may be the conscious perception that one is aroused, together with the cognitive interpretation of the stimulus that are important in developing emotional experience. Bec ause the right hemisphere appears to play a special role in modulating arou sal and interpreting emotional stimuli, it is possible that right hemispher e damage may interfere with developing the computations needed for emotiona l experience. To test this hypothesis we exposed men, both neurologically i ntact and those with right and left hemisphere lesions, to emotionally prov ocative pictures that were paired with false cardiac feedback, and examined the effects of this false feedback on their ratings of attractiveness of t hese pictures and their cardiac reactivity to this information. Subjects wi th left hemisphere damage, but not right hemisphere damage, showed signific ant changes in their emotional rating whereas control subjects showed margi nal reactivity in their emotional ratings. Subjects with left hemisphere da mage also showed significant changes in their cardiac reactivity. This find ing is consistent with prior reports that indicate, when compared to right hemisphere damaged patients and normal controls, patients with left hemisph ere lesions have an increased visceral-autonomic response to stimuli. These findings further provide support for the postulate that it is the cognitiv e interpretation of perceived physiological arousal together with the cogni tive interpretation of the stimulus that is important in the development of emotional judgment and experience. These results do not support the approa ch-left hemisphere/avoidance-right hemisphere dichotomy, but instead sugges t that left hemisphere damage increases reactivity to false feedback, and t hat the intact right hemisphere function integrates the cognitive interpret ation of the emotional information and perceived arousal that lead to that emotional judgment. That these subjects showed no consistent relationship b etween their measures of cardiac reactivity and their ratings of attractive ness detracts from the James-Lange and attribution theories. These subjects also showed no consistent relationship between their knowledge of affectiv e physiological reactivity and their ratings of attractiveness, or between their knowledge of physiological reactivity and actual measures of cardiac reactivity, suggesting that other neuropsychological factors are involved i n making an emotional judgment.