| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: Impairments in facial affect recognition have been linked to the
development of various disorders. The aim of the current work is to conduct a
systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining whether this ability is
impaired in males with psychopathy or antisocial traits, when compared to healthy
individuals.
Method: Studies were eligible for inclusion if they compared facial affect recognition
in either a) psychopathic vs. antisocial males, b) psychopathic vs. healthy controls and
c) antisocial vs. healthy controls. Primary outcomes were group differences in overall
emotion recognition, fear recognition, and sadness recognition. Secondary outcomes
were differences in recognition of disgust, happiness, surprise and anger.
Results: Fifteen papers comprising 214 psychopathic males, 491 antisocial males and
386 healthy community controls were identified. In psychopathy, limited evidence
suggested impairments in fear (k=2), sadness (k=1) and surprise (k=1) recognition
relative to healthy individuals, but overall affect recognition ability was not affected
(k=2). Findings were inconclusive for antisocial (k=4-6), although impairments in
surprise (k=4) and disgust (k=5) recognition were observed. Psychopathic and
antisocial samples did not differ in their ability to detect sadness (k=4), but
psychopaths were less able to recognise happiness (k=4) and surprise (k=3).
Conclusion: Limited evidence suggests psychopathic and antisocial personality traits
are associated with small to moderate deficits in specific aspects of emotion
recognition. However considerable heterogeneity was identified, and study quality
was often poor. Adequately powered studies using validated assessment measures,
rater masking and a priori public registration of hypotheses and methods are required. | en |
