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Abstract:
Specific goals: We report two studies that aimed to determine
the specificity of the emotional impairment in processing facial
and vocal affect in children with psychopathic tendencies and adult
psychopaths. Methods: Children with psychopathic tendencies and a
comparison group, as defined by the Psychopathy Screening Device
and adult psychopaths and a comparison group (N = 20 in all four
groups), as defined by the Revised Psychopathy Checklist, were
presented with two tasks. The first involved cinematic displays of
a standardised set of facial expressions that morphed from neutral
to prototypical displays of sadness, happiness, anger, disgust,
fear and surprise. The dependent measure was the morphed intensity
required for successful recognition. The second involved the
recognition of the affect in the vocal tone of a voice saying
emotionally neutral words (see Scott et al, 1997). Results: The
results indicated that children with psychopathic tendencies were
selectively impaired in their sensitivity to sad and fearful
expressions and fearful vocal tones relative to their comparison
group. The adult psychopathic individuals were selectively impaired
in their sensitivity to fearful facial expressions and vocal tones
relative to their comparison group. Further analyses revealed that
these results were not effects of task difficulty. Conclusions:
These results are interpreted with reference to an amygdala
dysfunction explanation of psychopathy.
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