scholarly journals Intact prioritization of fearful faces during continuous flash suppression in psychopathy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Stein ◽  
Aiste Jusyte ◽  
Nina Gehrer ◽  
Jonathan Scheeff ◽  
Michael Schönenberg
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Continuous Flash Suppression ◽  
State Recognition ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist Revised ◽  
Suppression Technique ◽  
Hare Psychopathy Checklist

Affective state recognition and in particular the identification of fear is known to be impaired in psychopathy. It is unclear, however, whether this reflects a deficit in basic perception (‘fear blindness’) or a deficit in later cognitive processing. To test for a perceptual deficit, 63 male incarcerated offenders, assessed with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), and 59 age-matched control participants detected fearful, neutral, and happy facial expressions rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression (CFS), a strong interocular suppression technique. Consistent with previous CFS studies on children, student and community samples, fearful faces were detected faster than neutral faces, which were detected faster than happy faces. Detection of emotional faces was unimpaired in offenders, with strong evidence for a full-blown fear advantage. Moreover, the fear advantage was not reduced in the 20 offenders qualifying as psychopaths according to the PCL-R, and there was no correlation between the fear advantage and PCL-R scores in the 63 incarcerated offenders. These results show that basic visual detection of fearful faces is unimpaired in psychopathy. Deficits in the processing of fearful facial expressions in psychopathy may thus not reflect fear blindness, but impairments at later post-perceptual processing stages related to attention, memory, decision-making, or language.

Statement of concerned experts on the use of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist—Revised in capital sentencing to assess risk for institutional violence.

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
David DeMatteo ◽  
Stephen D. Hart ◽  
Kirk Heilbrun ◽  
Marcus T. Boccaccini ◽  
Mark D. Cunningham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Capital Sentencing ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist ◽  
Institutional Violence ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist Revised ◽  
Hare Psychopathy Checklist

Comparative Validity Analysis of Multiple Measures of Violence Risk in a Sample of Criminal Offenders

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 479-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin S. Douglas ◽  
Melissa Yeomans ◽  
Douglas P. Boer
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Clinical Judgment ◽  
Violent Offender ◽  
Violence Risk ◽  
Criminal Offenders ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist Revised ◽  
Hare Psychopathy Checklist ◽  
Risk Judgments

This study compared the predictive validity of multiple indices of violence risk among 188 general population criminal offenders: Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20 (HCR-20) Violence Risk Assessment Scheme, Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG), Violent Offender Risk Assessment Scale (VORAS), Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), and Screening Version (PCL:SV). Several indices were related to violent recidivism with large statistical effect sizes: HCR-20 (Total, Clinical and Risk Management scales, structured risk judgments), VRAG, and behavioral scales of psychopathy measures. Multivariate analyses showed that HCR-20 indices were consistently related to violence and that the VRAG entered some analyses. Findings are inconsistent with a position of strict actuarial superiority, as HCR-20 structured risk judgments—an index of structured professional or clinical judgment—were as strongly related to violence.

scholarly journals Facial emotion processing in criminal psychopathy

2006 ◽  
Vol 189 (6) ◽  
pp. 533-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quinton Deeley ◽  
Eileen Daly ◽  
Simon Surguladze ◽  
Nigel Tunstall ◽  
Gill Mezey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Group Process ◽  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Extrastriate Cortex ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Psychopathy Checklist Revised ◽  
Distress Cues ◽  
Emotion Type

BackgroundIt has been suggested that people with psychopathic disorders lack empathy because they have deficits in processing distress cues (e.g. fearful facial expressions).AimsTo investigate brain function when individuals with psychopathy and a control group process facial emotion.MethodUsing event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging we compared six people scoring ⩾25 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised and nine non-psychopathic healthy volunteers during an implicit emotion processing task using fearful, happy and neutral faces.ResultsThe psychopathy group showed significantly less activation than the control group in fusiform and extrastriate cortices when processing both facial emotions. However, emotion type affected response pattern. Both groups increased fusiform and extrastriate cortex activation when processing happy faces compared with neutral faces, but this increase was significantly smaller in the psychopathy group. In contrast, when processing fearful faces compared with neutral faces, the control group showed increased activation but the psychopathy group decreased activation in the fusiform gyrus.ConclusionsPeople with psychopathy have biological differences from controls when processing facial emotion, and the pattern of response differs according to emotion type.

scholarly journals Not All Emotions Are Equal: Fear Chemosignals Lower Awareness Thresholds Only for Fearful Faces

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 601-608
Author(s):  
Fábio Silva ◽  
Nuno Gomes ◽  
Sebastian Korb ◽  
Gün R Semin
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Body Odor ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Continuous Flash Suppression ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Processing Stream ◽  
Body Odors

Abstract Exposure to body odors (chemosignals) collected under different emotional states (i.e., emotional chemosignals) can modulate our visual system, biasing visual perception. Recent research has suggested that exposure to fear body odors, results in a generalized faster access to visual awareness of different emotional facial expressions (i.e., fear, happy, and neutral). In the present study, we aimed at replicating and extending these findings by exploring if these effects are limited to fear odor, by introducing a second negative body odor—that is, disgust. We compared the time that 3 different emotional facial expressions (i.e., fear, disgust, and neutral) took to reach visual awareness, during a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm, across 3 body odor conditions (i.e., fear, disgust, and neutral). We found that fear body odors do not trigger an overall faster access to visual awareness, but instead sped-up access to awareness specifically for facial expressions of fear. Disgust odor, on the other hand, had no effects on awareness thresholds of facial expressions. These findings contrast with prior results, suggesting that the potential of fear body odors to induce visual processing adjustments is specific to fear cues. Furthermore, our results support a unique ability of fear body odors in inducing such visual processing changes, compared with other negative emotional chemosignals (i.e., disgust). These conclusions raise interesting questions as to how fear odor might interact with the visual processing stream, whilst simultaneously giving rise to future avenues of research.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document