Disruption of facial affect processing in word deafness
- K W Greve1,2,
- M T Heinly1,
- C L Joffe2,
- K J Bianchini2,3
- 1Department of Psychology, University of New Orleans, LA, USA
- 2Jefferson Neurobehavioral Group, University of New Orleans, LA, USA
- 3Department of Psychology, University of New Orleans, LA, USA
- Correspondence to: Dr K W Greve; kgreveuno.edu
Word deafness (also known as auditory agnosia for speech, or as auditory verbal agnosia) is a rare neurobehavioral syndrome characterised by an inability to understand spoken language in spite of intact hearing, speaking, reading, writing, and ability to identify non-speech sounds. The lesions associated with this condition tend to be bilateral and symmetrical in nature, and include cortical-subcortical tissue of the anterior part of the superior temporal gyri. However, Heschl’s gyrus is not always damaged completely in the left hemisphere. Moreover, there have been documented cases of word deafness caused by unilateral left hemisphere cortical and subcortical lesions.1 Although these lesions are anatomically different, they represent an effective partial hemispheric disconnection.
Hemispheric disconnection has been associated with unusual disruptions of emotional processing. Bowers and Heilman2 reported a patient with a lesion of the deep white matter of the right occipito-temporo-parietal region. This patient could name famous faces and discriminate affectively neutral faces, but could not name facial emotions or select emotional faces reflecting a named emotion. Bowers and Heilman hypothesised a visual-verbal disconnection resulting in an anomia for …
