Separated at birth: Rediscovering the lost emotions in Luria’s Working Brain

Abstract
Aleksandr Luria repeatedly emphasised the importance of emotions and the right hemisphere
in his neuropsychological writings. It is surprising, therefore, that Luria’s most
influential book, The Working Brain, appears to lack an explicit section on these topics. This
is especially notable because of a comment in the book’s English-language Introduction, by
Karl Pribram, referencing Luria’s thoughts about precisely this material. Remarkably, it
seems that Luria did write such an explicit chapter, in the original Russian edition. However,
in the English-language version, the relevant sections were separated, embedded
elsewhere without chapter headings, and altered, presumably following an explicit
translation decision. The present paper tracks the nature of these changes and, 50 years
later, presents the material for the first time translated and reunited in English, as Luria
intended. After the translation, we offer a brief commentary, on the ways in which Luria’s
ideas were in some respects prescient, and in other respects less well-informed about the
brain basis of emotions and the right hemisphere. This reunification offers an interesting
time capsule on the opinions of one of neuropsychology’s greatest minds, on a topic which
Luria admits had, at the time, only a modest empirical foundation.