Deficits in facial affect recognition among antisocial populations: A meta-analysis

Individuals with disorders marked by antisocial behavior frequently show deficits in recognizing displays of facial affect. Antisociality may be associated with specific deficits in identifying fearful expressions, which would implicate dysfunction in neural structures that subserve fearful expressi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 2008-01, Vol.32 (3), p.454-465
Main Authors: Marsh, Abigail A., Blair, R.J.R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Affect
Amygdala
Amygdala - physiopathology
Antisocial
Antisocial Personality Disorder - physiopathology
Antisocial Personality Disorder - psychology
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - physiopathology
Case-Control Studies
Child
Emotion
Facial affect
Facial Expression
Fear
Fearful expression
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Meta-analysis
Middle Aged
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychopathy
Recognition, Psychology
Social Perception
Statistics, Nonparametric
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Summary:Individuals with disorders marked by antisocial behavior frequently show deficits in recognizing displays of facial affect. Antisociality may be associated with specific deficits in identifying fearful expressions, which would implicate dysfunction in neural structures that subserve fearful expression processing. A meta-analysis of 20 studies was conducted to assess: (a) if antisocial populations show any consistent deficits in recognizing six emotional expressions; (b) beyond any generalized impairment, whether specific fear recognition deficits are apparent; and (c) if deficits in fear recognition are a function of task difficulty. Results show a robust link between antisocial behavior and specific deficits in recognizing fearful expressions. This impairment cannot be attributed solely to task difficulty. These results suggest dysfunction among antisocial individuals in specified neural substrates, namely the amygdala, involved in processing fearful facial affect.
ISSN:0149-7634
1873-7528
DOI:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2007.08.003