A selective impairment in the processing of sad and fearful expressions inchildren with psychopathic tendencies

The processing of emotional expressions is fundamental for normal socialisa tion and interaction. Reduced responsiveness to the expressions of sadness and fear has been implicated in the development of psychopathy (R. J. R. Bl air, 1995). The current study investigates the sensitivity of children with psychopathic tendencies to facial expressions. Children with psychopathic tendencies and a comparison group, as defined by the Psychopathy Screening Device (PSD; P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press), were presented with a cin ematic display of a standardised set of facial expressions that depicted sa dness, happiness, anger, disgust, fear, and surprise. Participants observed as these facial expressions slowly evolved through 20 successive frames of increasing intensity. The children with psychopathic tendencies presented with selective impairments; they needed significantly more stages before th ey could successfully recognise the sad expressions and even when the fearf ul expressions were at full intensity were significantly more likely to mis take them for another expression. These results are interpreted with refere nce to an amygdala and empathy impairment explanation of psychopathy.