PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Psychopathy is a multifaceted personality disorder characterized by distinct affective/interpersonal traits, including callousness-unemotionality/meanness, which are often considered the hallmarks of empathic deficits. It has been posited that the processing of others\' pain could play an important role in empathy capabilities. This study aimed to investigate the influence of perspective taking on electrocortical responses during pain processing in relation to psychopathic callousness. The late positive potential (LPP) -a well-established electrophysiological indicator of sustained attention to motivationally significant stimuli- was measured while 100 female undergraduates viewed images depicting bodily injuries while adopting an imagine-self or an imagine-other perspective. Callousness factor scores -computed as regression-based component scores from EFA on three relevant self-report measures of this dimension- predicted reduced LPP amplitudes to pain pictures under the imagine-other (but not imagine-self) perspective, even after controlling for other LPP conditions. This result suggests that high-callous individuals exhibit diminished brain responsiveness to others\' distress, potentially contributing to the empathic deficits observed in psychopathy. This finding highlights the usefulness of the LPP and perspective taking in studies on pain processing to refine our understanding of the low empathy characteristics of psychopathy in biobehavioral terms.
摘要：
精神病是一种多方面的人格障碍，其特征是不同的情感/人际关系特征，包括冷酷-单调乏味/卑鄙，这通常被认为是移情缺陷的标志。有人认为，处理他人的痛苦可能在移情能力中起重要作用。这项研究旨在研究在与精神病性冷酷有关的疼痛处理过程中，透视对皮层电反应的影响。测量了晚期正电位（LPP）-一种公认的持续关注动机上重要的刺激的电生理指标，同时有100名女大学生观看了描绘身体伤害的图像，同时采用了想象自我或想象他人的观点。冷酷因子得分-根据EFA的三个相关自我报告测量值计算为基于回归的分量得分-在想象-其他（但不是想象-自我）视角下预测的降低的LPP振幅到疼痛图片，即使在控制其他LPP条件后。这一结果表明，高度冷酷的个体表现出对他人痛苦的大脑反应能力减弱，可能导致在精神病中观察到的移情缺陷。这一发现凸显了LPP的有用性，并从疼痛处理的研究角度出发，以完善我们对生物行为学上精神病的低同理心特征的理解。
