Attention to the eyes and fear-recognition deficits in child psychopathy

Abstract

The ability to recognise fear is impaired in people with damage to the amygdala and, interestingly, in adult psychopathy. Here we confirm that deficits in recognising fear exist in children with psychopathic traits. We show for the first time that, as with patients with amygdala damage, this deficit can be temporarily corrected by simply asking them to focus on the eyes of other people. These data support models of psychopathy that emphasise specific dysfunction of the amygdala and suggest an innovative approach for intervening early in the development of psychopathy.

Callous-Unemotional Traits Are Related to Combined Deficits in Recognizing Afraid Faces and Body Poses

“…Youths who were high callous-unemotional traits had fewer correct responses to afraid faces, even controlling for violence and antisocial behavior. The deficits in afraid faces for youths high on callous-unemotional traits found are consistent with the findings reported by 13 who also found a significantly negative partial correlation. Using the corrected accuracy, a general deficit in labeling faces was found and no specific deficit for fear.…”

“…However, a general deficit in facial emotion recognition is not inconsistent with prior research. 18 Findings by 13 support poorer accuracy for faces in youths with high callous-unemotional traits, although not all negative coefficients Callous-Unemotional Traits 10 were significant. Most studies have neglected to adjust accuracy, and the results of the present study highlight the need to adjust for biases.…”

“…13,14 A recent meta-analysis 17 Callous-Unemotional Traits 4 revealed that people with callous-unemotional traits and those from antisocial populations exhibit deficits in identifying emotional facial expressions, and that this deficit is specific to fear. People with damage to the amygdala also have problems recognizing fear in faces.…”

Negative Emotional Responses Elicited by the Anticipation of Pain in Others: Psychophysiological Evidence

“…In line with this idea we would then expect that catastrophizing about own or other's pain would lead to hypervigilance, and a higher detection of pain in others 40,69 whereas psychopathy would lead to a lower detection of and hyposensitivity for pain in others 18,55 .…”

“…Supporting this idea, the amygdala, a key structure implied in fear responses, plays a critical role in the evocation of the fearpotentiated startle reflex 21,39,46,60,61 . Furthermore, research on personal pain experience has consistently shown that participants display a fear-potentiated startle when experiencing or 18 anticipating pain 25,38,41,47 , particularly when pain is perceived as highly threatening 7 Observers' distress towards pain signals in others likely serve a protective function of preparing observers for dealing with impending threat 40 . Specifically, observers' distress responses may instigate avoid/escape tendencies 72,81 .…”