Response perseveration and the triarchic model of psychopathy in an undergraduate sample.

This study aimed to extend previously reported links between distinctive configurations of traits in the psychopathic personality and maladaptive response perseveration, by examining performance in the Card Perseveration Task (CPT) within the framework of the triarchic model of psychopathy in a mixed-gender undergraduate sample. A computerized version of the CPT was administered to 222 undergraduates (142 women) assessed for triarchic psychopathy dimensions using the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM). Maladaptive response perseveration (more cards played and less money earned) was uniquely associated with trait boldness scores for both women and men. Moreover, analyses of response times following feedback indicated that poor performance on the CPT was related to lack of overall reflection. Further mediation analyses did not reveal significant effects of trait boldness on the response perseveration deficit through reflection times. Our results provide new evidence for the role of trait boldness in the failure to suspend reward-approach behavior in the face of increasing punishment contingencies, probably due to an absence of fear or insensitivity to punishment cues rather than to an unreflective response style

Deficient aversive-potentiated startle and the triarchic model of psychopathy: The role of boldness

This study examined the contribution of the phenotypic domains of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition of the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy (Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009) to deficient aversive-potentiated startle in a mixed-gender sample of 180 undergraduates. Eyeblink responses to noise probes were recorded during a passive picture-viewing task (erotica, neutral, threat, and mutilation). Deficient threat vs. neutral potentiation was uniquely related to increased boldness scores, thus suggesting that the diminished defensive reaction to aversive stimulation is specifically linked to the charm, social potency and venturesomeness features of psychopathy (boldness), but not to features such as callousness, coldheartedness and cruelty traits (meanness), even though both phenotypes theoretically share the same underlying low-fear disposition. Our findings provide further evidence of the differential association between distinct psychopathy components and deficits in defensive reactivity and strongly support the validity of the triarchic model of psychopathy in disentangling the etiology of this personality disorder.This study received the support of Grant PSI2011-22559 from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain), Grant P1·1B2013-12 from Universitat Jaume I (Spain) and a predoctoral fellowship from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación to the first author (BES-2008-004554)

Deficient fear conditioning and self-reported psychopathy: the role of fearless dominance

The role of the two dimensions of psychopathy-dispositional fearlessness (theorized to reflect variations in reactivity of the brain's defensive system) and externalizing proneness (presumed to reflect variations in function of anterior regulatory systems)-in fear learning was examined in a sample of undergraduates assessed using the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) who participated in a differential aversive conditioning task. Only scores on self-reported "fearless dominance," irrespective of scores on "impulsive antisociality," were related to diminished acquisition of physiological fear. Consistent with dual-process accounts of psychopathy proposing divergent etiological pathways for the interpersonal/affective and the social deviance features of the disorder, our results lend support to the existence of a deficit in reactivity of the brain's defensive system underlying the fearlessness dimension of psychopathy

Emotional Reactivity during anticipation and perception of affective pictures

The focus of the present study was on further exploring anticipatory responses to emotional stimuli by measuring the eyeblink startle reflex in a variation of the picture-picture affective learning procedure. Participants (113 undergraduate women) were not explicitly instructed before the experiment began. Instead, they had to learn the specific relations between cues (geometrical shapes) and emotional pictures based on pairings during the first part of the task. Plausible contingency learning effects were tested afterwards, in a parallel sequence of trials including auditory probes during cues and pictures processing during the second part of the task. Results did show the typical affective startle modulation pattern during perception, linear F(1, 200) = 52.67, p < .0001, but unexpected inhibition for both pleasant and unpleasant, compared to neutral cues, during anticipation, quadratic F(1, 200) = 7.07, p < .009. All patterns of startle modulation were independent of cue-picture contingency awareness (all interactions Fs < 1). Skin conductance changes showed the predictable quadratic trend either during picture perception or anticipatory periods (greater activity for emotional vs. neutral; overall quadratic F(1, 224) = 7.04, p < .01), only for participants fully aware of the cue-picture contingency, quadratic F(1, 158) = 5.86, p < .02. Overall, our results during anticipation (cues processing) seem to suggest that more resources were allocated to highly arousing pictures that engage attention. Differences between the present results and prior research may be attributed to procedural variations in the sample, cues, or instructions. Future studies should also explore in more detail the role of the contingency awareness during anticipation

Electrocortical measures of performance monitoring from go/no‐go and flanker tasks: Differential relations with trait dimensions of the triarchic model of psychopathy

This study examined associations of performance‐monitoring event‐related potentials (ERPs) from go/no‐go and flanker tasks with one another, and with psychopathy‐related traits of disinhibition, meanness, and boldness. A task‐dependent relationship was evident between the error‐related negativity (ERN) and trait disinhibition, with high‐disinhibited participants showing reduced no‐go ERN but not flanker ERN. Disinhibition was also inversely related to variants of the P3 and the error positivity (Pe) from these two tasks. A factor analysis of the ERPs revealed two distinct factors, one reflecting shared variance among the P3 and Pe measures from the two tasks, and the other covariance among the N2 and ERN measures. Scores on the P3/Pe factor, but not the N2/ERN factor, were inversely related to disinhibition, and accounted for associations of this trait with variants of the P3 and Pe across tasks. The implication is that high trait disinhibition relates mainly to reductions in brain responses associated with later elaborative stages in the processing of motivationally significant events across different tasks. Importantly, no‐go ERN predicted disinhibition scores beyond N2/ERN factor scores, indicating that high disinhibition is not generally related to diminished early preresponse conflict and error processing, but rather to processing impairments in conditions calling for inhibition of prepotent response tendencies

FFM description of the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy in men and women

This study examined differential associations between phenotypic domains of the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition; Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009), as assessed by the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (Patrick, 2010b), and the five-factor model (FFM) of normal personality, as indexed by the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Spanish version, Costa & McCrae, 1999), in 349 undergraduates (96 men). Distinctive patterns of correlations for psychopathy components did not differ significantly across gender, although relations between Meanness and Agreeableness were stronger for men than for women. Our findings are largely consistent with the conceptualization of psychopathy in terms of FFM constructs and provide discriminant evidence in support of all 3 triarchic domains. Thus, meanness is marked by low Agreeableness and some degree of low Conscientiousness, whereas disinhibition is characterized both by low Conscientiousness and low Agreeableness along with high Neuroticism and Extraversion. Notably, the constellation of low Neuroticism, high Extraversion, and high Openness, with facets of low Agreeableness, supports the idea that boldness encompasses some adaptive features of psychological adjustment while depicting the interpersonal features of psychopathy

Low defensive cardiac reactivity as a physiological correlate of psychopathic fearlessness: Gender differences

Affective/interpersonal features of psychopathy have been consistently associated with diverse psychophysiological indicators of low threat sensitivity, suggesting an underlying deficit in the reactivity of the brain’s defensive motivational system. This study examined the Cardiac Defense Response (CDR) —a complex pattern of heart rate changes in response to an aversive, intense, and unexpected stimulus— and its second accelerative component (A2), as a new physiological indicator of the fearlessness trait component of psychopathy. The differential contribution of dispositional fearlessness, externalizing proneness, and coldheartedness to the CDR pattern elicited during a defense psychophysiological test was examined in a mixed-gender sample of 156 undergraduates (62% women) assessed by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R). Higher PPI-R Fearless Dominance scores were related to lower heart rate changes throughout the CDR in women, but not in men. Further analyses on scales conforming the fearless dominance factor revealed that the hypothesized reduced A2 was specifically related to higher PPI-R Fearlessness scores only in women. Our findings provide initial evidence for the utility of the A2 to better understand the physiological aspects of fearlessness tendencies and its potential distinct manifestations across gendersFunding: This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Spain; Grant PID2019-104522GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; Grant FPU18/01613).Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Jaume

Diferencias de género en el recuerdo de imágenes de distinto contenido afectivo

Cinquenes Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la FCHS (Any 1999-2000

Attention-affect interactions and triarchic psychopathy: New electrophysiological insights from the late positive potential

One of the most prominent characteristics of psychopathy is a reduced processing of emotionally relevant information. However, it is still unclear how attentional mechanisms may modulate this deficit. The current study aimed to examine the impact of attentional focus on emotion processing in relation to the triarchic constructs of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Participants performed two tasks in which pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant framed pictures were presented. In the first task, participants were required to indicate the color of the frame (alternative-focus task), whereas in the second task they were instructed to indicate the emotional category of the image (affect-focus task). The Late Positive Potential (LPP) was used as an index of sustained engagement of attention to affective material. Confirming a successful task manipulation, we observed reduced LPP amplitudes, particularly for affective relevant material, in the alternative-focus task compared to the affect-focus task. Most interestingly, our results evidenced that trait meanness scores were associated with blunted elaborative processing of affective material (both appetitive and aversive) when this information was task-relevant (affect-focus task), but not when it was taskirrelevant (alternative-focus task). These findings indicate that high mean individuals are characterized by blunted elaborative processing of affective stimuli when their motivational relevance is determined in a top-down manner (i.e., when it is task-relevant). Our results highlight the need for further studying of the bottom-up and top-down dynamics of emotional attention in psychopathy.Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Jaume

Facing challenges in differential classical conditioning research: benefits of a hybrid design for simultaneous electrodermal and electroencephalographic recording

Several challenges make it difficult to simultaneously investigate central and autonomous nervous system correlates of conditioned stimulus (CS) processing in classical conditioning paradigms. Such challenges include, for example, the discrepant requirements of electroencephalography (EEG) and electrodermal activity (EDA) recordings with regard to multiple repetitions of conditions and sufficient trial duration. Here, we propose a MultiCS conditioning set-up, in which we increased the number of CSs, decreased the number of learning trials, and used trials of short and long durations for meeting requirements of simultaneous EEG–EDA recording in a differential aversive conditioning task. Forty-eight participants underwent MultiCS conditioning, in which four neutral faces (CS+) were paired four times each with aversive electric stimulation (unconditioned stimulus) during acquisition, while four different neutral faces (CS−) remained unpaired. When comparing after relative to before learning measurements, EEG revealed an enhanced centro-posterior positivity to CS+ vs. CS− during 368–600 ms, and subjective ratings indicated CS+ to be less pleasant and more arousing than CS−. Furthermore, changes in CS valence and arousal were strong enough to bias subjective ratings when faces of CS+/CS− identity were displayed with different emotional expression (happy, angry) in a post-experimental behavioral task. In contrast to a persistent neural and evaluative CS+/CS− differentiation that sustained multiple unreinforced CS presentations, electrodermal differentiation was rapidly extinguished. Current results suggest that MultiCS conditioning provides a promising paradigm for investigating pre–post-learning changes under minimal influences of extinction and overlearning of simple stimulus features. Our data also revealed methodological pitfalls, such as the possibility of occurring artifacts when combining different acquisition systems for central and peripheral psychophysiological measures