| Summary: | Three experiments tested the hypothesis that psychopathy is associated with
abnormal processing of semantic and affective verbal information. Experiments 1 and 2
investigated the ability of psychopaths to show behavioral and event-related potential
(ERP) differentiation for concrete and abstract words. The relevant ERP components of
the nonpsychopaths differentiated concrete and abstract words in a pattern consistent to
that found with noncriminals. In contrast, psychopaths were less accurate than
nonpsychopaths when categorizing abstract words and they failed to demonstrate the
appropriate neural differentiation between concrete and abstract words. Experiment 3
explored the ability of psychopaths and nonpsychopaths to discriminate between words
that differed in emotional polarity. Both groups responded faster to positive than to
negative words. However, in nonpsychopaths the early (P200) and late components
(P300 and Late Positive Complex) of the ERP were larger for the negative words than
positive words. Psychopaths failed to show any ERP differentiation between positive and
negative words. Additionally, in all three experiments, the ERPs of the psychopaths were
characterized by a large centro-frontal negative-going wave in the 300 - 500 ms time
window (N350). The functional significance of this large negative wave and related
findings for understanding psychopathy are discussed. === Arts, Faculty of === Psychology, Department of === Graduate
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