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Ribes-Guardiola P, Ventura-Bort C, Poy R, Segarra P, Branchadell V, Moltó J. Attention-affect interactions and triarchic psychopathy: New electrophysiological insights from the late positive potential. Psychophysiology 2023; 60:e14222. [PMID: 36416527 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14222] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2022] [Revised: 10/09/2022] [Accepted: 11/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
One of the most prominent characteristics of psychopathy is a reduced processing of emotionally relevant information. However, it is still unclear how attentional mechanisms may modulate this deficit. The current study aimed to examine the impact of attentional focus on emotion processing in relation to the triarchic constructs of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Participants performed two tasks in which pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant framed pictures were presented. In the first task, participants were required to indicate the color of the frame (alternative-focus task), whereas in the second task they were instructed to indicate the emotional category of the image (affect-focus task). The Late Positive Potential (LPP) was used as an index of sustained engagement of attention to affective material. Confirming a successful task manipulation, we observed reduced LPP amplitudes, particularly for affective relevant material, in the alternative-focus task compared to the affect-focus task. Most interestingly, our results evidenced that trait meanness scores were associated with blunted elaborative processing of affective material (both appetitive and aversive) when this information was task-relevant (affect-focus task), but not when it was task-irrelevant (alternative-focus task). These findings indicate that high mean individuals are characterized by blunted elaborative processing of affective stimuli when their motivational relevance is determined in a top-down manner (i.e., when it is task-relevant). Our results highlight the need for further studying of the bottom-up and top-down dynamics of emotional attention in psychopathy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pablo Ribes-Guardiola
- Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology, and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain
| | - Carlos Ventura-Bort
- Department of Biological Psychology and Affective Science, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Rosario Poy
- Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology, and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain
| | - Pilar Segarra
- Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology, and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain
| | - Victoria Branchadell
- Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology, and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain
| | - Javier Moltó
- Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology, and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain
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Deming P, Eisenbarth H, Rodrik O, Weaver SS, Kiehl KA, Koenigs M. An examination of autonomic and facial responses to prototypical facial emotion expressions in psychopathy. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0270713. [PMID: 35776725 PMCID: PMC9249219 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270713] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2021] [Accepted: 06/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Meta-analyses have found that people high in psychopathy categorize (or “recognize”) others’ prototypical facial emotion expressions with reduced accuracy. However, these have been contested with remaining questions regarding the strength, specificity, and mechanisms of this ability in psychopathy. In addition, few studies have tested holistically whether psychopathy is related to reduced facial mimicry or autonomic arousal in response to others’ dynamic facial expressions. Therefore, the current study presented 6 s videos of a target person making prototypical emotion expressions (anger, fear, disgust, sadness, joy, and neutral) to N = 88 incarcerated adult males while recording facial electromyography, skin conductance response (SCR), and heart rate. Participants identified the emotion category and rated the valence and intensity of the target person’s emotion. Psychopathy was assessed via the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). We predicted that overall PCL-R scores and scores for the interpersonal/affective traits, in particular, would be related to reduced emotion categorization accuracy, valence ratings, intensity ratings, facial mimicry, SCR amplitude, and cardiac deceleration in response to the prototypical facial emotion expressions. In contrast to our hypotheses, PCL-R scores were unrelated to emotion categorization accuracy, valence ratings, and intensity ratings. Stimuli failed to elicit facial mimicry from the full sample, which does not allow drawing conclusions about the relationship between psychopathy and facial mimicry. However, participants displayed general autonomic arousal responses, but not to prototypical emotion expressions per se. PCL-R scores were also unrelated to SCR and cardiac deceleration. These findings failed to identify aberrant behavioral and physiological responses to prototypical facial emotion expressions in relation to psychopathy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philip Deming
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Hedwig Eisenbarth
- School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
| | - Odile Rodrik
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
| | - Shelby S. Weaver
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
| | - Kent A. Kiehl
- The Mind Research Network and Lovelace Biomedical, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America
- Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America
| | - Michael Koenigs
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
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Gray NS, McKinnon A, Snowden RJ. A reduction in the pupil's response to affective sounds in psychopathy and related personality traits. Physiol Rep 2022; 10:e15235. [PMID: 35312180 PMCID: PMC8935637 DOI: 10.14814/phy2.15235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2022] [Accepted: 03/01/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023] Open
Abstract
The pupil of the eye dilates in response to affective information, even if that information is not visual. We used this affective modulation of the pupil to examine the hypothesis that individuals with high traits of psychopathy have an insensitivity to emotional stimuli. We also examined general personality traits related to psychopathy. A sample of 120 healthy young men had their pupils monitored while they listened to sound clips that conveyed either neutral emotion (e.g., rain), negative emotion (e.g., a person screaming) or positive emotion (e.g., people laughing). Psychopathy and general personality traits were measured via self-report questionnaire. As expected, both the positive and negative emotional sounds produced greater dilation in the pupil size than neutral sounds. This affective modulation of the pupil was found to be reduced for the negative sounds for people high on the "callous/affective" components of psychopathy (the Affective facet of the SRP-4 and the Meanness scale of the TriPM) and the general personality traits of Reward Dependence and Cooperativeness. The results indicate that these callous traits of psychopathy and general personality may be underpinned by a reduction in the ability to effectively process or monitor emotional stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola S. Gray
- Swansea University & Swansea Bay University Health BoardSwanseaUK
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Ahadzadeh AS, Ong FS, Wu SL. Social media skepticism and belief in conspiracy theories about COVID-19: the moderating role of the dark triad. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2021; 42:8874-8886. [PMID: 34393466 PMCID: PMC8354518 DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-02198-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
The prevalence of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 in the wide-open social media environment has raised considerable concerns about the adverse effects of believing such theories. The previous work showed that skepticism is negatively associated with acceptance of media content. However, this association has yet to be investigated between skepticism towards content on social media and conviction of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Furthermore, this association can be a function of social media users' dark triad traits comprising Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. A convenient sample of 439 Malaysian young adult social media users was recruited to complete the survey. Results showed that skepticism has a negative relationship with belief in conspiracy theories about COVID-19. However, the strength of the relationship is varied depending on respondents' Machiavellianism and narcissism levels. The negative association between skepticism and belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories is weaker for individuals with high scores on Machiavellianism. High and moderate scores on narcissism were also found to diminish the negative relationship of skepticism with COVID-19 conspiracy ideation. The results yield implications for enhancing healthy skepticism to mitigate belief in conspiracy theories promulgated on social media. Nonetheless, Machiavellianism and narcissism appeared to weaken the power of skepticism on conspiracy theories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashraf Sadat Ahadzadeh
- Department of Journalism, Xiamen University Malaysia, Jalan Sunsuria, Bandar Sunsuria, 43900 Sepang, Selangor Malaysia
| | - Fon Sim Ong
- Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jln Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Malaysia
| | - Shin Ling Wu
- Department of Psychology, School of Medical and Life Sciences, Sunway University, 5, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Sunway, 47500 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Malaysia
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