The relationship between a leftward bias and negative emotional recognition

There appears to be a growing body of evidence supporting the relationship between space and emotion. For example, a fascinating study by Tamagni, Mantei, and Brugger found that healthy right handed subjects who exhibited a leftward line bisection bias on a lateralized lexical decision task had a recognition advantage for negative over positive emotional words.

The authors suggest that functional hemispheric differences state variables may be less decisive than the trait variable of lateral hemispatial attention and propose a reconsideration of "hemisphericity". Their findings also have complex implications for the interaction between cortical (anterior and posterior)and subcortical structures in the mediation of both the production of emotions and perception.

Tamagni C, Mantei T, & Brugger P (2009). Emotion and space: lateralized emotional word detection depends on line bisection bias. Neuroscience, 162 (4), 1101-5 PMID: 19501133