[Emotional and meaningful regulation of perception in psychopathic personalities of the excitable and hysterical type].

An experimental psychological study of the emotional and meaningful perception control involved 83 psychopaths of the excitable and hysterical types and 80 mentally normal test subjects. It has been revealed that unlike normal people, perception in psychopathic personalities is based on a smaller number of emotional-evaluation categories; under emotional stress their perception is more dependent on the subjective significance of the perceived stimuli; the process of perception in such individuals is less hierarchical and structural. The data obtained indicate an inadequately structuralized and unstable hierarchy of meaningful formations in psychopathic patients of the excitable and hysterical types.