This study was designed to address the issue of whether there is a general processor for the perception of emotion or whether there are separate processors. We examined the relationships among three channels of emotional communication in 100 healthy right-handed adult males and females. The channels were facial, prosodic/intonational, and lexical/verbal; both identi® cation and discrimination tasks of emotional perception were utilised. Statistical analyses controlled for nonemotional perceptual factors and subject characteristics (i.e. demographic and general cognitive). For identi® cation, multiple signi® cant correlations were found among the channels. For discrimination, fewer correlations were signi® cant. Overall, these results provide support for the notion of a general processor for emotional perceptual identi® cation in normal adult subjects.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the perception of lexical/verbal emotion across the adult life span. Secondary goals were to examine the contribution of gender and valence (i.e., pleasantness/unpleasantness) to the processing of lexical emotional stimuli. Participants were 28 young (ages 20-39), 28 middle-aged (ages 40-59), and 28 older (ages 60-85) right-handed adults; there were 14 men and 14 women in each age group. Age groups were comparable on demographic and cognitive variables. Participants made accuracy judgments and intensity ratings of emotional (both positive and negative) and nonemotional stimuli from lexical perception tasks from the New York Emotion Battery (Borod, Welkowitz, & Obler, 1992). Accuracy and intensity measures were not significantly correlated. When age was examined, older participants perceived emotional and nonemotional lexical stimuli with significantly less accuracy than did younger and middle-aged participants. On the other hand, older participants evaluated the nonemotional lexical stimuli as significantly more intense than younger participants. When gender was examined, lexical stimuli were processed more accurately by female than male participants. Further, emotional stimuli were rated more intense by female participants. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

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Verbal pragmatic aspects of discourse production were examined in 16 right brain-damaged (RBD), 16 left brain-damaged (LBD), and 16 normal control right-handed adults. The facilitation effect of emotional content, valence hypothesis, and relationship between pragmatics and emotion were evaluated. Participants produced monologues while recollecting emotional and nonemotional experiences. Transcribed monologues were rated for appropriateness on 6 pragmatic features: conciseness, lexical selection, quantity, relevancy, specificity, and topic maintenance. Overall, brain-damaged groups were rated as significantly less appropriate than normals. Consistent with the facilitation effect, emotional content enhanced pragmatic performance of LBD aphasic participants yet suppressed performance of RBD participants. Contrary to the valence hypothesis, RBD participants were more impaired for positive emotions and LBD participants for negative emotions. Pragmatic appropriateness was not strongly correlated with a measure of emotional intensity.