The Identification of Negative Emotions Through a Go/No-Go Task

Abstract

This study compares the performance, when identifying negative emotions on facial expression, of male offenders (n = 62) with a high level of psychopathy (n = 25) with other criminals with a low level of psychopathy (n = 37), as well as other “successful psychopaths” (n = 12) and non-criminals with a low level of psychopathy (n = 39) in order to clarify the negative emotional processing of offenders and non-offenders that are either high or low in psychopathy. The participants were assessed on a Go/No-Go paradigm in which subjects had to respond to the facial expressions of fear, sadness, and anger. The psychopathy level was obtained by Factor 1 of Hare’s PCL:SV. Both psychopathic groups, criminal and non-criminal, showed worse performance than their non-psychopathic counterparts on the identification of fear and sadness. An overresponsivity to both anger and fear was common to criminals, psychopaths, and non-psychopaths. These results reinforce the idea that psychopathy is related to a poor ability to identify fear and sadness in facial expressions independently of its manifestation in criminal behavior. In turn, a misidentified response pattern, characterized by an overresponsiveness for fear and anger, is common to both psychopaths and the criminal groups, and it appears to be the characteristic that distinguishes the three groups under study from non-criminal non-psychopath controls.

Reward Expectation Modulates the Identification of Facial Expressions of Emotion in Antisocial Offenders

“…In addition, this study did not find differences between the antisocial group and the controls under the no contingency condition, in line with previous studies with different groups from the antisocial spectrum (Book et al, 2007;Glass & Newman, 2006;Kosson et al, 2002;Minzenberg, Poole, & Vinogradov, 2006). So, our results did not support either the findings of Robinson et al (2012), suggesting a deficit in the ability to recognise emotions in prisoners, or the findings of other studies performed with other antisocial populations in which the deficit in the ability to recognise emotions was only observed for specific emotional categories (Dolan & Fullam, 2006;Iria & Barbosa, 2009;Iria, Barbosa & Paixão, 2012;Marsh & Blair, 2008).…”

The effectiveness of Dutch Cell Dogs in correctional facilities in the Netherlands: a study protocol of a quasi-experimental trial

“…As an additional measure of participants’ ability to inhibit behaviors, the emotional go/no go task will be used. For the current study, the emotional go/no go task as described by Iria, Barbosa, and Paixao [ 26 ] and Schulz and colleagues [ 27 ] was adapted. Participants will be presented with a 48-picture set representing faces, each depicting one of four emotions (i.e., fear, anger, sadness, and neutral), during four blocks.…”

“…The majority of pictures presented in each round will be go-signals (75%), thereby creating a tendency for people to react (press ‘go’) to the presented pictures. Due to this inclination to respond, the number of commission errors (i.e., wrongly responding to a ‘no go’) and reaction time for commission errors give insight into participants’ behavioral inhibition [ 26 , 27 ].…”

“…In addition, the aforementioned emotional go/no go task will also give insight into the attentive ability of participants. Omission errors (missing a ‘go’ signal) will be calculated for each participant and provide a measure of attention [ 26 , 27 ].…”

“…The emotional go/no go task mentioned above will be used as an additional measure to assess participants’ emotional processing ability to identify (negative) emotions. The differences in reaction time and the number of commission errors across the four emotional conditions (i.e., neutral, sad, angry, scared) provide an indication of participants’ ability to process and identify negative emotions (i.e., sad, angry, scared) [ 26 , 27 ].…”