For the hemispheric laterality of emotion processing in the brain, two competing hypotheses are currently still debated. The first hypothesis suggests a greater involvement of the right hemisphere in emotion perception whereas the second hypothesis suggests different involvements of each hemisphere as a function of the valence of the emotion. These hypotheses are based on findings for facial and prosodic emotion perception. Investigating emotion perception for other stimuli, such as music, should provide further insight and potentially help to disentangle between these two hypotheses. The present study investigated musical emotion perception in patients with unilateral right brain damage (RBD, n = 16) or left brain damage (LBD, n = 16), as well as in matched healthy comparison participants (n = 28). The experimental task required explicit recognition of musical emotions as well as ratings on the perceived intensity of the emotion. Compared to matched comparison participants, musical emotion recognition was impaired only in LBD participants, suggesting a potential specificity of the left hemisphere for explicit emotion recognition in musical material. In contrast, intensity ratings of musical emotions revealed that RBD patients underestimated the intensity of negative emotions compared to positive emotions, while LBD patients and comparisons did not show this pattern. To control for a potential generalized emotion deficit for other types of stimuli, we also tested facial emotion recognition in the same patients and their matched healthy comparisons. This revealed that emotion recognition after brain damage might depend on the stimulus category or modality used. These results are in line with the hypothesis of a deficit of emotion perception depending on lesion laterality and valence in brain-damaged participants. The present findings provide critical information to disentangle the currently debated competing hypotheses and thus allow for a better characterization of the involvement of each hemisphere for explicit emotion recognition and their perceived intensity.

对于大脑中情感处理的半球偏性，目前仍在争论两个相互竞争的假设。第一个假设表明右半球更多地参与情感感知，而第二个假设表明每个半球的不同参与程度取决于情感的效价。这些假设基于面部和韵律情感知觉的发现。对其他刺激（例如音乐）的情感感知进行研究应能提供进一步的见解，并有可能有助于区分这两种假设。本研究调查了单侧右脑损伤（RBD，n = 16）或左脑损伤（LBD，n = 16）以及匹配的健康比较参与者（n = 28）患者的音乐情感知觉。实验任务需要明确识别音乐情感，以及对情感感知强度的评级。与匹配的比较参与者相比，只有LBD参与者的音乐情感识别受到损害，这表明左半球对于音乐资料中的明确情感识别具有潜在的特异性。相比之下，音乐情感的强度等级表明，与积极情感相比，RBD患者低估了负面情感的强度，而LBD患者及其比较没有显示出这种模式。为了控制其他类型刺激的潜在普遍情感缺失，我们还测试了相同患者及其匹配的健康对照中的面部情感识别。这表明脑损伤后的情绪识别可能取决于所使用的刺激类别或方式。这些结果与脑损伤参与者的病变侧向和效价取决于情绪感知不足的假设相符。本研究结果提供关键信息，以解开当前争论的竞争假设，从而更好地表征每个半球的参与，以进行明确的情绪识别及其感知强度。