The psychopath as observer: Emotion and attention in picture processing.

Abstract

This study extended prior work showing abnormal affect-startle modulation in psychopaths. Male prisoners viewed specific categories of pleasant (erotic or thrilling) and unpleasant (victim or direct threat) slide pictures, along with neutral pictures. Acoustic startle probes were presented early (300 and 800 ms) and late (1,800, 3,000, and 4,500 ms) in the viewing interval. At later times, nonpsychopaths showed moderate and strong reflex potentiation for victim and threat scenes, respectively. For psychopaths, startle was inhibited during victim scenes and only weakly potentiated during threat. Psychopaths also showed more reliable blink inhibition across pleasant contents than nonpsychopaths and greater heart rate orienting to affective pictures overall. These results indicate a heightened aversion threshold in psychopaths. In addition, deficient reflex modulation at early times suggested a weakness in initial stimulus evaluation among psychopaths.

Cites (87)

1. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
   Williams, Janet B. W., First, Michael · 2013 · Encyclopedia of Social Work
2. Applied Multivariate Statistics for the Social Sciences
   Stevens, James P. · 2012 · Routledge eBooks
3. Looking at pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions
   LANG, PETER J., GREENWALD, MARK K., BRADLEY, MARGARET M., HAMM, ALFONS O. · 1993 · Psychophysiology
4. The emotion probe: Studies of motivation and attention.
   Peter J. Lang · 1995 · American Psychologist
5. SPSS for Windows
   Hj Norussis · 1993 · Medical Entomology and Zoology
6. Untitled work
   2002
7. The Mask of Sanity
   Cleckley, Hervey M. · 1951 · Postgraduate Medicine
8. Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex
   Lang, Peter J., Bradley, Margaret M., Cuthbert, Bruce N. · 1990 · Psychological Review
9. Integrative activity of the brain
   Jerzy Konorski · 1967 · University of Chicago Press eBooks
10. Brain potentials in affective picture processing: covariation with autonomic arousal and affective report
    Cuthbert, Bruce N., Schupp, Harald T., Bradley, Margaret M., Birbaumer, Niels, Lang, Peter J. · 2000 · Biological Psychology

Show all 87 references

Cited by (22)

1. Responding to the emotions of others: Dissociating forms of empathy through the study of typical and psychiatric populations
   Blair, R.J.R. · 2005 · Consciousness and Cognition
2. Limbic abnormalities in affective processing by criminal psychopaths as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging
   Kiehl, Kent A, Smith, Andra M, Hare, Robert D, Mendrek, Adrianna, Forster, Bruce B, Brink, Johann, Liddle, Peter F · 2001 · Biological Psychiatry
3. Psychophysiology of aggression, psychopathy, and conduct problems: A meta-analysis
   Lorber, Michael F. · 2004 · Psychological Bulletin
4. The development of psychopathy
   Blair, R.J.R., Peschardt, K.S., Budhani, S., Mitchell, D.G.V., Pine, D.S. · 2006 · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
5. Neural correlates of social cooperation and non-cooperation as a function of psychopathy
   Rilling, James K., Glenn, Andrea L., Jairam, Meeta R., Pagnoni, Giuseppe, Goldsmith, David R., Elfenbein, Hanie A., Lilienfeld, Scott O. · 2007 · Biological Psychiatry

See all 391