Recognition of facial emotions, their reinforcement values and related approach and avoidance behavior in psychopathy.

Research has shown that psychopathy is associated with in the recognition of
facial emotions. However, studies show mixed results with respect to which
emotions are less well recognized, e.g. negative emotions only or also positive
emotions. Unclear is also whether this recognition deficit is only found under
condition of low emotional intensity or also at full blown expressions. Till
now, results are based on explicit task (naming the emotion seen on visual
stimuli), but not on implicit tasks such as task measuring approach and
avoidance reactions to facial emotions.
Besides abnormalities in facial emotion recognition, individuals with
psychopathy show problems with certain forms of learning. Reserach in this
field is mostly based on behavioral data. Only one studie has related this
deficit to psychophsysiological markers of learning. It was found that people
with psychopathy show deficits in using the Response and Feedback Related
Negativity (rERN and fERN), two ERP components generated in response to errors
or negative feedback. Smaller Error Positivities (Pe), markers for conscious
error detection were also found.
One form of learning that has received no attention so far in the research of
psychopathy is social referencing. This form of learning is based on using
facial emotions as feedback cues, and is thought to be important for learning
in social situations.
Goal of therapy for treating psychopathy is resocialization. Insight into
different aspects relevant for social learning could help make therapies more
effective in the future.

This study is a systematic evaluation of the (explicit and implicit) processing
of facial emotions and learning based on facial emotions. In the first part we
will investigate recognition of different facial emotions, at varying
intensities. Eyetracking will be used to examine how faces are scanned during
the recognition task. In the second part an approach/ avoidance task based on
facial expressions will be used as an implicit measures of how people with
psychopathy react to facial emotions. In the last part we will use a learning
task in which facial emotions are used as feedback cues to investigate
behavioral difficulties in social referencing. Additionally learning related
ERP components (rERN, fERN, and Pe) will be examined to investigate whether the
processing of errors and feedback is affected by psychopathy and underlying
behavioral learning difficulties.

Te study has a cross-sectional design with a healthy control group matched to
the patient roup on age, sex and educational level.

There is no risk associated with participation.