Is there any hemispheric asymmetry difference for processing religious stimuli in people with high and low religious attitude?

This research examined differences in the perception of emotion words as a function of individual differences in subclinical levels of depression and anxiety. Participants completed measures of depression and anxiety and performed a lexical decision task for words varying in affective valence (but equated for arousal) that were presented briefly to the right or left visual field. Participants with a lower level of depression demonstrated hemispheric asymmetry with a bias toward words presented to the left hemisphere, but participants with a higher level of depression displayed no hemispheric differences. Participants with a lower level of depression also demonstrated a bias toward positive words, a pattern that did not occur for participants with a higher level of depression. A similar pattern occurred for anxiety. Overall, this study demonstrates how variability in levels of depression and anxiety can influence the perception of emotion words, with patterns that are consistent with past research.

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The Two Components of Social Desirability and their Relations to Resting Frontal Brain Asymmetry

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001.26.1.29 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 29-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Cornelia A. Pauls ◽

Jan Wacker ◽

Nicolas W. Crost

Keyword(s):

Impression Management ◽

Big Five ◽

Hemispheric Asymmetry ◽

Incentive Motivation ◽

Blink Rate ◽

Frontal Brain ◽

Self Reports ◽

Opposite Sex ◽

The Relationship ◽

Α Band

Abstract. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between resting frontal hemispheric asymmetry (FHA) in the low α band (8-10.25 Hz) and the two components of socially desirable responding, i.e., self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) and impression management (IM), in an opposite-sex encounter. In addition, Big Five facets, self-reports of emotion, and spontaneous eye blink rate (BR), a noninvasive indicator of functional dopamine activity, were assessed. SDE as well as IM were related to relatively greater right-than-left activity in the low α band (i.e., relative left frontal activation; LFA) and to self-reported positive affect (PA), but only SDE was related to BR. We hypothesized that two independent types of motivational approach tendencies underlie individual differences in FHA and PA: affiliative motivation represented by IM and agentic incentive motivation represented by SDE. Whereas the relationship between SDE and PA was mediated by BR, the relationship between SDE and FHA was not.

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What Is Left Is Right

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027/1016-9040.14.1.78 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 78-89 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Kenneth Hugdahl ◽

René Westerhausen

Keyword(s):

Speech Processing ◽

Information Transfer ◽

Hemispheric Asymmetry ◽

Functional Neuroimaging ◽

Gray Matter Volume ◽

Functional Anatomy ◽

Posterior Part ◽

Functional Asymmetry ◽

Planum Temporale ◽

Evolution Of Speech

The present paper is based on a talk on hemispheric asymmetry given by Kenneth Hugdahl at the Xth European Congress of Psychology, Praha July 2007. Here, we propose that hemispheric asymmetry evolved because of a left hemisphere speech processing specialization. The evolution of speech and the need for air-based communication necessitated division of labor between the hemispheres in order to avoid having duplicate copies in both hemispheres that would increase processing redundancy. It is argued that the neuronal basis of this labor division is the structural asymmetry observed in the peri-Sylvian region in the posterior part of the temporal lobe, with a left larger than right planum temporale area. This is the only example where a structural, or anatomical, asymmetry matches a corresponding functional asymmetry. The increase in gray matter volume in the left planum temporale area corresponds to a functional asymmetry of speech processing, as indexed from both behavioral, dichotic listening, and functional neuroimaging studies. The functional anatomy of the corpus callosum also supports such a view, with regional specificity of information transfer between the hemispheres.

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