Fear Conditioning Deficits in Children and Adolescents with Psychopathic Traits: a Study in a Clinical Population

Deficits in fear conditioning related to psychopathy have been widely studied in adults. However, evidence in children and adolescents is scarce and inconsistent. This research aimed to expand knowledge about fear conditioning in psychopathy and its dimensions in child and early adolescent clinical populations. Participants were 45 boys (outpatients) aged 6–14 years (M = 10.59, SD = 2.04). They were assessed with the parents’ and teachers’ versions of the Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI). A fear conditioning paradigm (Neumann et al., in Biological Psychology, 79(3), 337–342, 2008) for children and adolescents was used. Conditioned stimuli (CS+ and CS-) were geometric shapes and the unconditioned stimulus (US) was an unpleasant sound of metal scraping on slate (83 dB). Difference scores (CS+ minus CS-) in skin conductance responses (SCR) and self-reported cognitive and affective measures were considered as indices of fear conditioning. Results showed that: a) deficits in fear conditioning were related to some psychopathy dimensions but not to psychopathy as a unitary construct; b) the Impulsivity-Need for Stimulation dimension was a predictor of impaired fear conditioning at a cognitive level; c) the interaction of Callous-Unemotional and Impulsivity-Need for Stimulation dimensions was a significant predictor of impaired electrodermal fear conditioning; d) by contrast, the Grandiose-Deceitful dimension, was marginally associated with a greater electrodermal fear conditioning. In conclusion, psychopathy dimensions and their interactions, but not psychopathy as a whole, predicted deficits in fear conditioning as measured by SCR and cognitive indices. These findings confirm the notion that psychopathic traits are associated with deficits in fear conditioning in child and adolescent clinical populations and provide support for a multidimensional approach to youth psychopathy.

Skin Conductance Responses to a Discrete Threat in Virtual Reality: Associations with Psychopathy and Anxiety

People with high levels of psychopathic traits are often described as fearless and lacking in emotional depth, particularly when evaluating threats in their environments. Skin conductance responsivity (SCR) to negative emotional stimuli represents a robust autonomic correlate of conduct problem behavior in children (Fanti et al., in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 100, 98–107, 2019). However, studies that have examined threat-related processing in youth with conduct problems have tended to use a variety of negative stimuli that might induce various and unspecific negative emotions. Few studies have taken in to account the moderating effects of anxiety on the relationship of distinct psychopathic traits (e.g., narcissism, callousness, impulsivity) with SCR to a fear inducing stimulus. In this study, we examined SCR to a virtual reality rollercoaster drop – that is, a discrete fear inducing event – in a sample of 75 youths (61 males; M = 14 years, SD = 1.4) enrolled in a non-mainstream school. The rollercoaster drop was used to more clearly examine an event-related response to a discrete threat, rather than examining SCR throughout the rollercoaster ride. We used the teacher-reported Antisocial Process Screening Device (Frick & Hare, in Antisocial process screening device: APSD. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems, 2001) to examine the relations of distinct psychopathic traits with SCR and self-reported anxiety. Lower anxiety was associated with higher callousness, but only in youths with low SCR to discrete threat. These findings suggest that fear and anxiety show complex and interactive relations with distinct psychopathic traits.

Different armpits under my new nose: olfactory sex but not gender affects implicit measures of embodiment

Research has shown that conflicting multisensory signals may alter embodiment to the point of self-identifying with a foreign body, but the role of olfaction in this process has been overlooked. Here, we study in healthy participants how sex (male and female sweat odors) and gender (male and female cosmetic scents) olfactory stimuli contribute to embodiment. Participants saw from the perspective of a sex mismatching person in virtual reality and received synchronous visuo-tactile stimulation to elicit illusory embodiment of the seen body while smelling either sex- or gender- congruent stimuli. We assessed implicit (skin conductance responses to visual threats) and explicit (questionnaire) measures of embodiment. Stronger responses to threat were found when participants smelled the sex-congruent compared to the sex-incongruent odor, while no such differences were found for the cosmetic scents. According to the questionnaire, embodiment did not differ between conditions. Post-experimental assessment of the presented cues, suggest that while both sweat odors were considered generally male, cosmetic scents were not. The presented scents were generally not associated to the embodied body. Our results suggest that sex-related body odors influence implicit but not explicit aspects of embodiment and are in line with unique characteristics of olfaction in other aspects of cognition.

Social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender, social concern, and the presence of real vs virtual agents

The presence of a partner can attenuate physiological fear responses, a phenomenon known as social buffering. However, not all individuals are equally sociable. Here we investigated whether social buffering of fear is shaped by sensitivity to social anxiety (social concern) and whether these effects are different in females and males. We collected skin conductance responses (SCRs) and affect ratings of female and male participants when they experienced aversive and neutral sounds alone (alone treatment) or in the presence of an unknown person of the same gender (social treatment). Individual differences in social concern were assessed based on a well-established questionnaire. Our results showed that social concern had a stronger effect on social buffering in females than in males. The lower females scored on social concern, the stronger the SCRs reduction in the social compared to the alone treatment. The effect of social concern on social buffering of fear in females disappeared if participants were paired with a virtual agent instead of a real person. Together, these results showed that social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender and social concern. In females, the presence of virtual agents can buffer fear, irrespective of individual differences in social concern. These findings specify factors that shape the social modulation of human fear, and thus might be relevant for the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Measuring human trace fear conditioning

Trace fear conditioning is an important research paradigm to model aversive learning in biological or clinical scenarios, where predictors (conditioned stimuli, CS) and aversive outcomes (unconditioned stimuli, US) are separated in time. The optimal measurement of human trace fear conditioning, and in particular of memory recall after consolidation, is currently unclear. We conducted two identical experiments with a 15-s trace interval and a recall test 1 week after acquisition, while recording several psychophysiological observables. We explored learning and memory measures in the first experiment and confirmed the most sensitive measures in the second experiment. Retrodictive validity was used as a metric to estimate measurement error. We found that in the recall test without reinforcement, only fear-potentiated startle but not skin conductance, pupil size, heart period, or respiration amplitude, differentiated CS+ and CS-. During acquisition without startle probes, only skin conductance responses and pupil size responses but none of the other measures differentiated CS+ and CS-. We establish the optimal way of quantifying these conditioned responses. As a side finding, there was no evidence for extinction of fear-potentiated startle over 30 trials without reinforcement. These results may be useful to inform future substantive research using human trace fear conditioning protocols.

Interoceptive sensibility predicts the ability to infer others’ emotional states

Emotional sensations and inferring another’s emotional states have been suggested to depend on predictive models of the causes of bodily sensations, so-called interoceptive inferences. In this framework, higher sensibility for interoceptive changes (IS) reflects higher precision of interoceptive signals. The present study examined the link between IS and emotion recognition, testing whether individuals with higher IS recognize others’ emotions more easily and are more sensitive to learn from biased probabilities of emotional expressions. We recorded skin conductance responses (SCRs) from forty-six healthy volunteers performing a speeded-response task, which required them to indicate whether a neutral facial expression dynamically turned into a happy or fearful expression. Moreover, varying probabilities of emotional expressions by their block-wise base rate aimed to generate a bias for the more frequently encountered emotion. As a result, we found that individuals with higher IS showed lower thresholds for emotion recognition, reflected in decreased reaction times for emotional expressions especially of high intensity. Moreover, individuals with increased IS benefited more from a biased probability of an emotion, reflected in decreased reaction times for expected emotions. Lastly, weak evidence supporting a differential modulation of SCR by IS as a function of varying probabilities was found. Our results indicate that higher interoceptive sensibility facilitates the recognition of emotional changes and is accompanied by a more precise adaptation to emotion probabilities.

Proactive vs. Reactive Aggression Within Two Modified Versions of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm

The Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP) has been widely used to measure reactive aggression following provocation during competitive interactions. Besides being reactive, aggression can be goal-directed (proactive aggression). Our study presents a novel paradigm to investigate proactive aggression during competitive interactions. Sixty-seven healthy participants competed in two modified versions of the TAP against an ostensible opponent while skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded. During the proactive TAP (pTAP), only the participant could interfere with the ostensible opponent’s performance by blurring the screen. In the reactive TAP (rTAP), the opponent repeatedly provoked the participant by blurring the screen of the participant, impeding their chance to win. In both versions, the blurriness levels chosen by the participant served as a measure of aggression (unprovoked in the pTAP and provoked in the rTAP). In the pTAP, trial-by-trial mixed model analyses revealed higher aggression with higher self-reported selfishness. SCRs decreased with increasing proactive aggression. An interaction effect between gender and proactive aggression for the SCRs revealed increased SCRs at higher aggression levels in females, but lower SCRs at higher aggression levels in males. In the rTAP, SCRs were not associated with reactive aggression but aggression increased with increasing provocation and especially after losing against the opponent when provoked. While males showed higher aggression levels than females when unprovoked, reactive aggression increased more strongly in females with higher provocation. Mean levels of aggression in both tasks showed a high positive correlation. Our results highlight that, despite being intercorrelated and both motivated by selfishness, proactive and reactive aggression are differentially influenced by gender and physiological arousal. Proactive aggression is related to lower physiological arousal, especially in males, with females showing the opposite association. Reactive aggressive behavior is a result of individual responses to provocation, to which females seem to be more sensitive.

Influence Factors for Decision-Making Performance of Suicide Attempters and Suicide Ideators: The Roles of Somatic Markers and Explicit Knowledge

Impaired decision-making has been observed in suicide attempters during the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Decision-making performance is influenced by somatic markers and explicit knowledge, but it is still unclear of the influencing role on decision-making performance in suicidal individuals. We aimed to investigate whether there is a decision-making deficit in suicide attempters, suicide ideators, as well as the distinct roles of somatic markers and explicit knowledge wherein. Thirteen suicide attempters, 23 suicide ideators, and 19 healthy controls performed the IGT. Both somatic markers (by the skin conductance responses, SCRs) and explicit knowledge (by the subjective experience rating and a list of questions) were recorded. No significant differences were found among the three groups on IGT performance, explicit knowledge, and anticipatory SCRs. IGT Performance of suicide attempters was positively correlated with explicit knowledge index while behavior performance was positively associated with the SCRs in healthy controls. These results indicate that the suicide attempters seem to apply a compensatory strategy by mostly utilizing explicit knowledge to perform normally as healthy controls in the IGT.

Emotional arousal in 2D versus 3D virtual reality environments

Previous studies have suggested that virtual reality (VR) can elicit emotions in different visual modes using 2D or 3D headsets. However, the effects on emotional arousal by using these two visual modes have not been comprehensively investigated, and the underlying neural mechanisms are not yet clear. This paper presents a cognitive psychological experiment that was conducted to analyze how these two visual modes impact emotional arousal. Forty volunteers were recruited and were randomly assigned to two groups. They were asked to watch a series of positive, neutral and negative short VR videos in 2D and 3D. Multichannel electroencephalograms (EEG) and skin conductance responses (SCR) were recorded simultaneously during their participation. The results indicated that emotional stimulation was more intense in the 3D environment due to the improved perception of the environment; greater emotional arousal was generated; and higher beta (21–30 Hz) EEG power was identified in 3D than in 2D. We also found that both hemispheres were involved in stereo vision processing and that brain lateralization existed in the processing.

Physiological threat sensitivity predicts anti-immigrant attitudes

Research finds that the perception that immigrants are culturally and economically threatening is associated with negative attitudes toward immigration. In a largely separate body of work, psychophysiological predispositions toward threat sensitivity are connected to a range of political attitudes, including immigration. This article draws together these two literatures, using a lab experiment to explore psychophysiological threat sensitivity and immigration attitudes in the United States. Respondents with higher threat sensitivity, as measured by skin conductance responses to threatening images, tend to be less supportive of immigration. This finding builds on our understanding of the sources of anti-immigrant attitudes.