Centre for Psychiatry, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University.
J Abnorm Psychol. 2017 Nov;126(8):1066-1076. doi: 10.1037/abn0000293.
Psychopathy consists of a constellation of affective-interpersonal features including lack of empathy, callousness, manipulativeness and interpersonal charm, impulsiveness and irresponsibility. Despite its theoretical and predictive value in forensic contexts, the relationships between the psychometric dimensions of psychopathy, including its antisocial features, and the construct's neuropsychological characteristics remain uncertain. In this study, 685 personality-disordered prisoners with histories of serious violent or sexual offenses were assessed for psychopathy before completing a computerized and well-validated assessment of the ability to recognize emotional expressions in the face. Prisoners with more of the affective features of psychopathy, and prisoners with more of its antisocial manifestations, showed relatively poor recognition accuracy of fearfulness and disgust. These relationships were independent and modest but were still evident following correction for demographic features (e.g., ethnicity and socioeconomic status), mental illness (e.g., substance and alcohol misuse), personality disorders (other than antisocial personality disorder) and treatment status. By contrast, the associations between these dimensions of psychopathy and emotion recognition were diminished by controlling for cognitive ability. These findings demonstrate that variability in the ability of high-risk personality-disordered prisoners to recognize emotional expressions in the face-in particular, fear and disgust-reflects both the affective and antisocial aspects of psychopathy, and is moderated by cognitive ability. (PsycINFO Database Record
精神病态由一系列情感人际特征组成，包括缺乏同理心、冷酷无情、操纵欲和人际魅力、冲动和不负责任。尽管在法医背景下具有理论和预测价值，但精神病态的心理测量学维度（包括其反社会特征）与该结构的神经心理学特征之间的关系仍然不确定。在这项研究中，685 名有严重暴力或性犯罪史的人格障碍囚犯在完成面部表情识别能力的计算机化和经过良好验证的评估之前，接受了精神病态评估。具有更多情感特征的精神病态患者，以及具有更多反社会表现的精神病态患者，对恐惧和厌恶的识别准确性相对较差。这些关系是独立的且适度的，但在纠正人口统计学特征（例如种族和社会经济地位）、精神疾病（例如物质和酒精滥用）、人格障碍（除反社会人格障碍外）和治疗状况后仍然明显。相比之下，通过控制认知能力，这些精神病态维度与情绪识别之间的关联减弱了。这些发现表明，高风险人格障碍囚犯对面部表情识别能力的变化——尤其是恐惧和厌恶——反映了精神病态的情感和反社会方面，并受到认知能力的调节。
