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Electrophysiology of dampening of emotional reactivity in psychopathic personality

Resource type
Thesis type
(Thesis) M.A.
Date created
2011-07-27
Authors/Contributors
Abstract
Diminished emotional and empathic capacity is a core characteristic of psychopathic personality. The current study examines the effect of the condition on neural reactivity to emotional content with the use of high-density electroencephalography (EEG). Seventeen high-trait and 15 low-trait healthy individuals identified with a self-report measure of psychopathy participated in an emotional Stroop task in which they responded to negative and positive valence blocks of emotionally charged and emotionally neutral images. The high-trait group showed less reactivity to emotional stimuli than neutral stimuli with faster Stroop reaction times, reduced amplitude of two emotional processing event-related potentials (ERPs), the Early Anterior Positivity, and the Late Positive Potential, and less affective amplification of the P1 attentional ERP. Diminished processing of emotional content may reflect a top-down, learned inhibition of emotional processing, whereas reduced early emotional reorienting of attention also suggests an additional bottom-up, biologically based deficit in affective reactivity.
Document
Identifier
etd6820
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Copyright is held by the author.
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The author granted permission for the file to be printed and for the text to be copied and pasted.
Scholarly level
Supervisor or Senior Supervisor
Thesis advisor: Liotti, Mario
Member of collection
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etd6820_PCarolan.pdf 1.73 MB

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