Impaired perception of facial emotions following bilateral damage to the anterior temporal lobe

Abstract

Two patients (E.P. and G.T.) were previously described with damage to amygdala and anterior temporal cortex (S.B. Hamann et al., 1996). Both rated emotions in facial expressions normally (the rating task) when the data analysis followed a method that had revealed an impairment in the well-studied patient S.M. The present study reports findings for a 3rd patient (G.P.) with the rating task and reexamines the data for E.P. and G.T. All 3 patients were also given a labeling task in which they selected, from a list of 6 words, which word they thought best described the emotion expressed by a face. All 3 patients were unmistakably impaired on both tasks. However, the impairment exhibited by these patients is different from S.M.'s impairment. The difference may depend on the etiology (congenital vs. adult-onset lesion) or the site of the damage (relatively selective amygdala damage vs. damage to amygdala as well as anterior temporal cortex).