Attention moderates the fearlessness of psychopathic offenders.
BACKGROUND
Psychopathic behavior is generally attributed to a fundamental, amygdala-mediated deficit in fearlessness that undermines social conformity. An alternative view is that psychopathy involves an attention-related deficit that undermines the processing of peripheral information, including fear stimuli.


METHODS
We evaluated these alternative hypotheses by measuring fear-potentiated startle (FPS) in a group of 125 prisoners under experimental conditions that 1) focused attention directly on fear-relevant information or 2) established an alternative attentional focus. Psychopathy was assessed using Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R).


RESULTS
Psychopathic individuals displayed normal FPS under threat-focused conditions but manifested a significant deficit in FPS under alternative-focus conditions. Moreover, these findings were essentially unchanged when analyses employed the interpersonal/affective factor of the PCL-R instead of PCL-R total scores.


CONCLUSIONS
The results provide unprecedented evidence that higher-order cognitive processes moderate the fear deficits of psychopathic individuals. These findings suggest that psychopaths' diminished reactivity to fear stimuli, and emotion-related cues more generally, reflect idiosyncrasies in attention that limit their processing of peripheral information. Although psychopathic individuals are commonly described as cold-blooded predators who are unmotivated to change, the attentional dysfunction identified in this study supports an alternative interpretation of their chronic disinhibition and insensitive interpersonal style.
Newman
Joseph P
JP
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
Curtin
John J
JJ
Bertsch
Jeremy D
JD
Baskin-Sommers
Arielle R
AR
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D057237:Criminals / Q000523:psychology*; D004597:Electroshock / Q000009:adverse effects; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013216:Reflex, Startle / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult