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. 2020 Jul;10(7):e01644.
doi: 10.1002/brb3.1644. Epub 2020 May 12.

Lateralization of facial emotion processing and facial paresis in Vestibular Schwannoma patients

Stephanie S A H Blom  1 , Henk Aarts  1 , Henricus P M Kunst  2   3 , Capi C Wever  4 , Gün R Semin  1   5
Affiliations

Lateralization of facial emotion processing and facial paresis in Vestibular Schwannoma patients

Stephanie S A H Blom et al. Brain Behav. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

Objective: This study investigates whether there exist differences in lateralization of facial emotion processing in patients suffering from Vestibular Schwannoma (VS) based on the presence of a facial paresis and their degree of facial functioning as measured by the House Brackmann Grading scale (HBG).

Methods: Forty-four VS patients, half of them with a facial paresis and half of them without a facial paresis, rated how emotive they considered images of faces showing emotion in the left versus right visual field. Stimuli consisted of faces with a neutral half and an emotional (happy or angry) half. The study had a mixed design with emotional expression (happy vs. angry) and emotional half (left vs. right visual field) of the faces as repeated measures, and facial paresis (present vs. absent) and HBG as between subjects' factors. The visual field bias was the main dependent variable.

Results: In line with typical findings in the normal population, a left visual field bias showed in the current sample: patients judged emotional expressions shown in the left visual field as more emotive than those shown in the right visual field. No differences in visual field bias showed based on the presence of a facial paresis nor based on patients' HBG.

Conclusion: VS patients show a left visual field bias when processing facial emotion. No differences in lateralization showed based on the presence of a facial paresis or on patients' HBG. Based on this study, facial paresis thus does not affect the lateralization of facial emotion processing in patients with VS.

Keywords: Vestibular Schwannoma; emotion expression; facial mimicry; facial paresis; hemispheric processing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Examples of a chimeric face showing a happy facial expression in the left visual field (left image) and in the right visual field (right image)
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Left visual field bias in Vestibular Schwannoma patients. Error bars represent standard error
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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