FACIAL AFFECT RECOGNITION IN VIOLENT AND NONVIOLENT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR SUBTYPES

Prior studies provide evidence for impaired recognition of distress cues in individuals exhibiting antisocial behavior. However, it remains unclear whether this deficit is generally associated with antisociality or may be specific to violent behavior only. To examine whether there are meaningful differences between the two behavioral dimensions rule-breaking and aggression, violent and nonviolent incarcerated offenders as well as control participants were presented with an animated face recognition task in which a video sequence of a neutral face changed into an expression of one of the six basic emotions. The participants were instructed to press a button as soon as they were able to identify the emotional expression, allowing for an assessment of the perceived emotion onset. Both aggressive and non-aggressive offenders demonstrated a delayed perception of primarily fearful facial cues as compared to controls. These results suggest the importance of targeting impaired emotional processing in both types of antisocial behavior.