Ivanova-Serokhvostova Anastasiya, Fanti Kostas, Bonillo Albert, Supèr Hans, Corrales Montserrat, Pérez-Bonaventura Iris, Pamias Montserrat, Ramos-Quiroga Antoni J, Torrubia Rafael, Nadal Roser, Frick Paul J, Molinuevo Beatriz
Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain.
Institut de Neurociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain.
Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2024 Aug 17. doi: 10.1007/s10578-024-01739-6.
Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children and adolescents are linked to severe and persistent antisocial behavior. Based on past empirical research, several theoretical models have suggested that CU traits may be partly explained by difficulties in correctly identifying others' emotional states as well as their reduced attention to others' eyes, which could be important for both causal theory and treatment. This study tested the relationships among CU traits, emotion recognition of facial expressions and visual behavior in a sample of 52 boys referred to a clinic for conduct problems (Mage = 10.29 years; SD = 2.06). We conducted a multi-method and multi-informant assessment of CU traits through the Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI), the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional (ICU), and the Clinical Assessment of Prosocial Emotions-Version 1.1 (CAPE). The primary goal of the study was to compare the utility of these methods for forming subgroups of youth that differ in their emotional processing abilities. An emotion recognition task assessed recognition accuracy (percentage of mistakes) and absolute dwell time on the eyes or mouth region for each emotion. Results from repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that low and high CU groups did not differ in emotion recognition accuracy, irrespective of the method of assessing CU traits. However, the high CU group showed reduced attention to the eyes of fearful and sad facial expressions (using the CPTI) or to all emotions (using the CAPE). The high CU group also showed a general increase in attention to the mouth area, but only when assessed by the CAPE. These findings provide evidence to support abnormalities in how those elevated on CU traits process emotional stimuli, especially when assessed by a clinical interview, which could guide appropriate assessment and more successful interventions for this group of youth.
儿童和青少年的冷酷无情（CU）特质与严重且持续的反社会行为有关。基于过去的实证研究，一些理论模型表明，CU特质可能部分归因于难以正确识别他人的情绪状态以及对他人眼睛的关注度降低，这对于因果理论和治疗都可能很重要。本研究在一个由52名因行为问题被转介到诊所的男孩样本中（平均年龄=10.29岁；标准差=2.06），测试了CU特质、面部表情的情绪识别和视觉行为之间的关系。我们通过儿童问题特质量表（CPTI）、冷酷无情量表（ICU）和亲社会情绪临床评估量表第1.1版（CAPE），对CU特质进行了多方法、多 informant 评估。该研究的主要目标是比较这些方法在形成情绪加工能力不同的青少年亚组方面的效用。一项情绪识别任务评估了每种情绪的识别准确性（错误百分比）以及在眼睛或嘴巴区域的绝对停留时间。重复测量方差分析的结果显示，无论评估CU特质的方法如何，低CU组和高CU组在情绪识别准确性上没有差异。然而，高CU组对恐惧和悲伤面部表情的眼睛关注度降低（使用CPTI）或对所有情绪的眼睛关注度降低（使用CAPE）。高CU组对嘴巴区域的关注度也普遍增加，但仅在通过CAPE评估时如此。这些发现为支持CU特质较高者在处理情绪刺激方面存在异常提供了证据，尤其是通过临床访谈评估时，这可以为该组青少年的适当评估和更成功的干预提供指导。
