Brain laterality and the subliminal perception of facial expression.
Right-handed subjects were presented simultaneously with: (1) a face expressing positive, neutral, or negative affect in the left or right visual field and, (2) the outlines of the face containing visual noise, in the opposite visual field. A range of stimulus presentation durations was used to sample above and below threshold processing. On each trial subjects responded to two forced choice questions: (1) Which side was the face on? and (2) What was the emotion expressed by the face? The results revealed a left visual field advantage for locating the face. There was only suggestive evidence in favour of a right hemisphere superiority in the processing of facial expression per se. The most important finding was that when subjects' performance locating the face represented chance (i.e., there was no reportable awareness of stimulus cues needed to discriminate a face from a nonface), they were significantly above chance identifying the facial expression.
D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D013997:Time Factors; D014794:Visual Fields