4.3. Forensic Psychology
Master Psychology
________________________________________________________________
, Theme 2. Forensic Neurobiology
Sources
Decety et al. (2013)
Meffert et al. (2013)
Hodgins et al. (2013)
Johnson et al. (2016) – Chapter 11 in Cima
Buckholtz et al. (2014)
Jones et al. (2013)
PART 1.
Decety, Chen, Harenski, & Kiehl (2013). An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals
with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy
Introduction
- Empathy (= the social-emotional response induced by the perception of another person’s
affective state) is a fundamental component of emotional experience, and is vital for social
interaction.
- Empathy is a proxy for prosocial behavior, guiding our social preferences and providing the
affective and motivational base for moral development.
- The absence of empathy suggests social-cognitive deficits; and among the various
psychopathologies characterized by these deficits, psychopaths have a general lack of
empathy and attenuated response to emotional stimuli.
- Empathy includes both cognitive and affective components:
- Affective/empathic arousal/emotion contagion component: Develops earlier (by
2nd year of life), has evolutionary roots, really feeling the emotional state of
someone else.
- Empathic arousal is needed to motivate someone to care for others and
depends only minimally on perspective-taking capacities.
- Empathic arousal is a bottom-up process in which the amygdala,
hypothalamus, anterior insula (aINS), and OFC underlie rapid and prioritized
processing of emotion signals sent by others.
- Cognitive empathy/theory of mind: Perspective-taking, the ability to consciously
put oneself into the mind of someone else and imagine what the person is thinking
or feeling.
- This ability is linked to social competence and social reasoning.
- Affective perspective-taking is more effective than cognitive perspective-
taking to evoke empathy and altruistic helping.
- Neural network involved in perspective-taking is the link between the mPFC,
posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS/TPJ), and temporal
poles/amygdala.
, - Affective perspective-taking depends on intact mPFC and vmPFC as well as
posterior temporo-parietal cortex regions.
- Patients with damage to the vmPFC exhibit an impairment in affective
theory of mind, sparing their cognitive empathy ability.
- A study showed that young children can be moved by the emotional states of others
(affective empathy) and recognize what their target is distressed about (cognitive
empathy).
- Young children with high empathy disposition are more readily aroused vicariously
by other’ sadness, pain or distress, but at the same time possess greater abilities to
regulate emotions, so that their own negative arousal motivates rather them
overwhelms their desire to alleviate the other’s distress.
- There is a distinction between an imagine-self perspective and an imagine-other perspective.
- Imagine-self perspective: The central figure is oneself and one’s own thoughts and
feelings, and increases the salience of self-attributes.
- Imagine-other perspective: Empathic attentional set in which someone opens
him/herself in a deeply responsive way to the other person.
- The distinction is supported by fMRI research:
- When asked to imagine being in physical pain themselves, they report
greater pain intensity and have greater activation in the aINS, aMCC,
thalamus, somatosensory cortex, and amygdala compared to imagining the
same physical pain to someone else.
- Imagining-other perspective in pain versus imagining oneself in pain, was
associated with increased activity in the right pSTS and mPFC.
- People with psychopathy have limited aversive arousal to the distress and sadness cues of
others, but spared theory of mind and cognitive perspective-taking abilities.
- It is, however, not known if, when they adopt the affective perspective-taking of
another person, the extent to which the active contemplation of another’s affective
experience modulates brain circuits involved in affective processing.
- A study hypothesized that psychopaths have spared mentalizing (cognitive empathy)
abilities, and that the key deficit appears to relate to their lack of concern about the impact
of their behavior on potential victims, rather than the inability to adopt a victim-centered
perspective.
- Also hypothesized that imagine-self perspective would be associated with stronger
response in the aINS, somatosensory cortex, and ACC than imagine-other
perspective-taking in participants scoring low on psychopathy, especially F1.
- Due to altered responding to affective stimuli in psychopathy, it was expected that,
when individuals scoring high on psychopathy (F1) take the perspective of others,
show a pronounced deficit in aINS and vmPFC.
Materials and methods
- 124 Adult right-handed males between ages 18-50 years, incarcerated in a medium-security
North-American correctional facility.
- Participants underwent the PCL-R assessment, including file review and interview.
- Participants scoring >30 on PCL-R were assigned to the high psychopathy-group.
- Two volunteer groups were matched to create the medium- and low-psychopathy groups,
from pools of incarcerated volunteers scoring between 21-29 years.
- Task design:
Master Psychology
________________________________________________________________
, Theme 2. Forensic Neurobiology
Sources
Decety et al. (2013)
Meffert et al. (2013)
Hodgins et al. (2013)
Johnson et al. (2016) – Chapter 11 in Cima
Buckholtz et al. (2014)
Jones et al. (2013)
PART 1.
Decety, Chen, Harenski, & Kiehl (2013). An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals
with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy
Introduction
- Empathy (= the social-emotional response induced by the perception of another person’s
affective state) is a fundamental component of emotional experience, and is vital for social
interaction.
- Empathy is a proxy for prosocial behavior, guiding our social preferences and providing the
affective and motivational base for moral development.
- The absence of empathy suggests social-cognitive deficits; and among the various
psychopathologies characterized by these deficits, psychopaths have a general lack of
empathy and attenuated response to emotional stimuli.
- Empathy includes both cognitive and affective components:
- Affective/empathic arousal/emotion contagion component: Develops earlier (by
2nd year of life), has evolutionary roots, really feeling the emotional state of
someone else.
- Empathic arousal is needed to motivate someone to care for others and
depends only minimally on perspective-taking capacities.
- Empathic arousal is a bottom-up process in which the amygdala,
hypothalamus, anterior insula (aINS), and OFC underlie rapid and prioritized
processing of emotion signals sent by others.
- Cognitive empathy/theory of mind: Perspective-taking, the ability to consciously
put oneself into the mind of someone else and imagine what the person is thinking
or feeling.
- This ability is linked to social competence and social reasoning.
- Affective perspective-taking is more effective than cognitive perspective-
taking to evoke empathy and altruistic helping.
- Neural network involved in perspective-taking is the link between the mPFC,
posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS/TPJ), and temporal
poles/amygdala.
, - Affective perspective-taking depends on intact mPFC and vmPFC as well as
posterior temporo-parietal cortex regions.
- Patients with damage to the vmPFC exhibit an impairment in affective
theory of mind, sparing their cognitive empathy ability.
- A study showed that young children can be moved by the emotional states of others
(affective empathy) and recognize what their target is distressed about (cognitive
empathy).
- Young children with high empathy disposition are more readily aroused vicariously
by other’ sadness, pain or distress, but at the same time possess greater abilities to
regulate emotions, so that their own negative arousal motivates rather them
overwhelms their desire to alleviate the other’s distress.
- There is a distinction between an imagine-self perspective and an imagine-other perspective.
- Imagine-self perspective: The central figure is oneself and one’s own thoughts and
feelings, and increases the salience of self-attributes.
- Imagine-other perspective: Empathic attentional set in which someone opens
him/herself in a deeply responsive way to the other person.
- The distinction is supported by fMRI research:
- When asked to imagine being in physical pain themselves, they report
greater pain intensity and have greater activation in the aINS, aMCC,
thalamus, somatosensory cortex, and amygdala compared to imagining the
same physical pain to someone else.
- Imagining-other perspective in pain versus imagining oneself in pain, was
associated with increased activity in the right pSTS and mPFC.
- People with psychopathy have limited aversive arousal to the distress and sadness cues of
others, but spared theory of mind and cognitive perspective-taking abilities.
- It is, however, not known if, when they adopt the affective perspective-taking of
another person, the extent to which the active contemplation of another’s affective
experience modulates brain circuits involved in affective processing.
- A study hypothesized that psychopaths have spared mentalizing (cognitive empathy)
abilities, and that the key deficit appears to relate to their lack of concern about the impact
of their behavior on potential victims, rather than the inability to adopt a victim-centered
perspective.
- Also hypothesized that imagine-self perspective would be associated with stronger
response in the aINS, somatosensory cortex, and ACC than imagine-other
perspective-taking in participants scoring low on psychopathy, especially F1.
- Due to altered responding to affective stimuli in psychopathy, it was expected that,
when individuals scoring high on psychopathy (F1) take the perspective of others,
show a pronounced deficit in aINS and vmPFC.
Materials and methods
- 124 Adult right-handed males between ages 18-50 years, incarcerated in a medium-security
North-American correctional facility.
- Participants underwent the PCL-R assessment, including file review and interview.
- Participants scoring >30 on PCL-R were assigned to the high psychopathy-group.
- Two volunteer groups were matched to create the medium- and low-psychopathy groups,
from pools of incarcerated volunteers scoring between 21-29 years.
- Task design:
