Emotion Recognition Training in Antisocial Violent Offenders With Psychopathic Traits

Summary

Impaired recognition of affective facial expressions has been conclusively linked to antisocial and psychopathy. However, little is known about the modifiability of this deficit. This study aims to investigate whether and under which circumstances the proposed perceptual insensitivity can be addressed with a brief implicit training approach.

Conditions

• Psychopathy
• Violent Aggressive Behavior
• Emotional Problem

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

SEE Training

Participants are first presented with a fixation cross which indicates the beginning of a trial and is immediately followed by a bilateral presentation of a neutral and a fearful image (face) of the same model identity. The fearful expression is always replaced by an arrow pointing to the left or the right which remaines active until the participant indicates via button-press which direction the arrow is pointing to. The model identity, the position of the fearful cue and the arrow probe direction are pseudo-randomized across trials with no more than three identical sequential occurrences on each parameter. Each session consists of 360 trials in total, with 120 distinct trial types and three repetitions. Participants are trained with neutral and 75% fearful expressions only in the first session; the intensity of the fearful cue is successively decreased by 15% at every subsequent session.

BEHAVIORAL

GAZE Training

Participants are first presented with a fixation cross, which indicates the beginning of a trial and is immediately followed by a bilateral presentation of a direct gaze-image (neutral face) and an image of a neutral face (same model identity) displaying deviated gaze. The averted gaze-face is always replaced by an arrow pointing to the left or the right which remaines active until the participant indicates via button-press which direction the arrow is pointing to. The model identity, the position of the fearful cue and the arrow probe direction are pseudo-randomized across trials with no more than three identical sequential occurrences on each parameter. Each session consists of 360 trials in total, with 120 distinct trial types and three repetitions. Participants are trained with direct and 100% averted gaze images only in the first session; the intensity of the deviated gaze cue is successively decreased by 20% at every subsequent session.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• German Research Foundation

  collaborator OTHER

• University Hospital Tuebingen

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Michael Schönenberg, PhD · University Hospital Tuebingen

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

MALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-04-01

Primary Completion

2019-03-01

Completion

2019-12-31

Countries

• Germany

Study Locations