Emotion Recognition and the Amygdala Facial expressions of emotion were morphed into a continuum that ran from happiness to surprise to fear to sadness to disgust to anger and back to happiness. This sequence was shown to a patient with bilateral amygdala damage and to a control group of 10 people without brain damage. Although the patient’s recognition of happiness, sadness, and surprise was generally in line with that of the control group, her recognition of anger, disgust, and fear was impaired (Calder et al., 1996).

COURTESY ANDY CALDER FROM CALDER, A. J., YOUNG, A.W., ROWLAND, D., PERRETT, D.I., HODGES, J.R., & ETCOFF, N.L. (1996). FACIAL EMOTION RECOGNITION AFTER BILATERAL AMYGDALA DAMAGE: DIFFERENTLY SEVERE IMPAIRMENT OF FEAR. COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 13,699–745. (FIGURE 1 PP. 713–714; FIGURE 2A PP. 718–719)