Emotion processing deficits in psychopathy

• In Event: The Neurobiology of Psychopathic Traits in Youths and College Students

Abstract

Successful empathetic responding involves accurate emotion recognition of facial expressions, a skill that is largely disrupted in individuals high on psychopathy. Recent research proposes that psychopathic individuals have impaired emotion recognition due to attention orienting deficits to salient facial features like the eyes. Psychopathic individuals also display blunted autonomic responding to emotional stimuli; though, whether this is due to attention orienting deficits remains to be clarified. In this study, we look at the effects of cueing on facial emotion recognition in college students with high or low psychopathic traits. Physiological responding and visual fixation patterns will be recorded during an emotion recognition task in which facial stimuli are presented under cued and uncued conditions. Based on prior literature, we hypothesize that compared to individuals with low psychopathy scores, those with high psychopathy scores will show lower arousal, decreased emotion recognition accuracy, and less visual fixation on the eye region in the uncued condition. Secondly, we hypothesize that when cued to pay attention to the eye region, high and low psychopathy individuals will show similar accuracy for emotion recognition and level of arousal, due to increased visual fixation to the eye region in those with high psychopathic traits. Implications for treatment programs will be discussed.

Authors

• Shawn Fagan, The Graduate Center, CUNY

• Yu Gao, Brooklyn College, City University of New York