Psychopathic Traits in Adolescents and Recognition of Emotion in Facial Expressions

Recent studies have investigated the ability of adult psychopaths and children with psychopathy traits to identify specific facial expressions of emotion. Conclusive results have not yet been found regarding whether psychopathic traits are associated with a specific deficit in the ability of identifying negative emotions such as fear and sadness. This study compared 20 adolescents with psychopathic traits and 21 adolescents without these traits in terms of their ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion using facial stimuli presented during 200 milliseconds, 500 milliseconds, and 1 second expositions. Analyses indicated significant differences between the two groups' performances only for fear and when displayed for 200 ms. This finding is consistent with findings from other studies in the field and suggests that controlling the duration of exposure to affective stimuli in future studies may help to clarify the mechanisms underlying the facial affect recognition deficits of individuals with psychopathic traits.