Callousness and affective face processing in adults: Behavioral and brain-potential indicators.

Abstract

The investigation of callous-unemotional (CU) traits has been central to contemporary research on child behavior problems, and served as the impetus for inclusion of a specifier for conduct disorder in the latest edition of the official psychiatric diagnostic system. Here, we report results from 2 studies that evaluated the construct validity of callousness as assessed in adults, by testing for affiliated deficits in behavioral and neural processing of fearful faces, as have been shown in youthful samples. We hypothesized that scores on an established measure of callousness would predict reduced recognition accuracy and diminished electocortical reactivity for fearful faces in adult participants. In Study 1, 66 undergraduate participants performed an emotion recognition task in which they viewed affective faces of different types and indicated the emotion expressed by each. In Study 2, electrocortical data were collected from 254 adult twins during viewing of fearful and neutral face stimuli, and scored for event-related response components. Analyses of Study 1 data revealed that higher callousness was associated with decreased recognition accuracy for fearful faces specifically. In Study 2, callousness was associated with reduced amplitude of both N170 and P200 responses to fearful faces. Current findings demonstrate for the first time that callousness in adults is associated with both behavioral and physiological deficits in the processing of fearful faces. These findings support the validity of the CU construct with adults and highlight the possibility of a multidomain measurement framework for continued study of this important clinical construct. (PsycINFO Database Record

See, Touch, and Feel: Enhancing Young Children's Empathy Learning Through a Tablet Game

“…However, in preschool‐aged children, P2 amplitudes are greater when viewing “antisocial” actions than “prosocial” actions (Meidenbauer et al, ). In adult populations, reduced P2 to negative stimuli (e.g., fearful or distressed faces) are associated with CU traits (Brislin et al, ) or “emotional desensitization” (Stockdale et al, ). Taken together, findings from this study imply that, after engaging with the empathy game, children's attentional resources are more easily mobilized when encountering antisocial or harming actions.…”

“…In typically developing preschool aged children, P200 amplitudes are greater for “antisocial” than for “prosocial” actions (Meidenbauer, Cowell, & Decety, ). In adult population, conditions such as phobic (Sarlo & Munafò, ), high‐level of callous‐unemotional (CU) traits (Brislin et al, ) and “emotional desensitization” resulting from exposure to violence (Stockdale, Morrison, Kmiecik, Garbarino, & Silton, ) are known to lead to reduced P200 in response to distress cues (e.g., expression of fear), indicating that sustained attention and processing is precluded. LPPs are known to index top‐down cognitive reappraisal and regulation of emotion arousal (Dennis & Hajcak, ; Hajcak & Dennis, ; Hajcak, Weinberg, MacNamara, & Foti, ).…”

Toward a multimodal measurement model for the neurobehavioral trait of affiliative capacity

“…For example, children, adolescents, and adults high in trait CA show reduced accuracy in categorizing emotional faces as fearful or sad (Marsh & Blair, 2008;White et al, 2015) and amygdala hypoactivity to fearful faces, in particular (Marsh & Blair 2008;Marsh, 2016;Viding et al, 2012). More recently, in adult samples, self-reported CA has been linked to reductions in brain-eventrelated potential (ERP) reactivity to fearful faces (Brislin & Patrick, 2019;Brislin et al, 2018). Specifically, individuals high in CA show blunted amplitude of ERP components thought to reflect face detection/categorization and emotional encoding processesnamely, N170 and P2, respectively (Shannon, Patrick, Venables, & He, 2013).…”

Abnormalities of the late positive potential during emotional processing in individuals with psychopathic traits: a meta-analysis

“…Emo, emotional, Pos, positive, Neg, negative, and Neu, neutral. The supplementary references(Rothemund et al, 2012;Brislin et al, 2018 andBrennan et al, 2018), were not added due to characteristics of clinical measurement (externalizing scale) and absence of visual emotional stimuli.…”