Barbosa Fernando, Almeida Pedro R, Ferreira-Santos Fernando, Marques-Teixeira João
Laboratory of Neuropsychophysiology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
School of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
Crim Behav Ment Health. 2016 Feb;26(1):18-29. doi: 10.1002/cbm.1950. Epub 2015 Mar 10.
Study of emotional responses of antisocial individuals has produced inconsistent findings. Some studies report emotional deficits, while others find no differences between people with and without antisocial behaviours.
Our aim was to apply signal detection theory methods to compare the sensitivity of antisocial and control participants to emotional stimuli. We hypothesised that offenders would show lower ability to discriminate changes in the level of arousal and valence of emotional stimuli relative to the controls.
Signal detection theory was applied to study the sensitivity of recidivist offenders in prison to emotional arousal and valence induced by pictures. This approach, novel in this context, provides a departure from the usual reliance on self-report.
Offenders reported higher arousal than controls but showed lower sensitivity to changes between different levels of arousal (whereas no differences were found for valence). Also, offenders showed increased response bias for changes in the levels of arousal, as well as in the higher levels of valence.
Our findings show that direct observations of emotional arousal, but not valence, discriminate between recidivist offenders with antisocial personality disorder and non-offending controls. Use of such approaches is likely to provide more valid data than self-reports and may prove particularly useful in studies of intervention for recidivists or in assessment of their readiness for release.
对反社会个体情绪反应的研究结果并不一致。一些研究报告称存在情绪缺陷，而另一些研究则发现有反社会行为者与无反社会行为者之间没有差异。
我们的目的是应用信号检测理论方法，比较反社会参与者和对照参与者对情绪刺激的敏感性。我们假设，与对照组相比，罪犯辨别情绪刺激的唤醒水平和效价变化的能力较低。
应用信号检测理论研究监狱中惯犯对图片诱发的情绪唤醒和效价的敏感性。在这种情况下，这种方法是新颖的，它不同于通常依赖自我报告的方法。
罪犯报告的唤醒水平高于对照组，但对不同唤醒水平之间的变化表现出较低的敏感性（而在效价方面未发现差异）。此外，罪犯对唤醒水平变化以及较高效价水平变化的反应偏差增加。
我们的研究结果表明，对情绪唤醒而非效价的直接观察能够区分患有反社会人格障碍的惯犯和非犯罪对照组。使用这种方法可能会比自我报告提供更有效的数据，并且在惯犯干预研究或评估他们的释放准备情况时可能特别有用。
