Emotion Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

2002, Vol. 2, No. 4, 398–411 1528-3542/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//1528-3542.2.4.398

Facial Affect Recognition in Criminal Psychopaths

David S. Kosson, Yana Suchy, and John Libby
Andrew R. Mayer University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Finch University of Health Sciences/
The Chicago Medical School

Prior studies provide consistent evidence of deficits for psychopaths in processing

verbal emotional material but are inconsistent regarding nonverbal emotional ma-
terial. To examine whether psychopaths exhibit general versus specific deficits in
nonverbal emotional processing, 34 psychopaths and 33 nonpsychopaths identified
with Hare’s (R. D. Hare, 1991) Psychopathy Checklist—Revised were asked to
complete a facial affect recognition test. Slides of prototypic facial expressions
were presented. Three hypotheses regarding hemispheric lateralization anomalies in
psychopaths were also tested (right-hemisphere dysfunction, reduced lateralization,
and reversed lateralization). Psychopaths were less accurate than nonpsychopaths at
classifying facial affect under conditions promoting reliance on right-hemisphere
resources and displayed a specific deficit in classifying disgust. These findings
demonstrate that psychopaths exhibit specific deficits in nonverbal emotional pro-
cessing.

For the past 50 years, the study of psychopathy has
been dominated by the perspective that psychopaths
engage in impulsive antisocial behavior and have un-
stable relationships with others because of a blunted
capacity for experiencing and understanding emotion.
According to this view, psychopaths are basically ra-
David S. Kosson, Yana Suchy, and Andrew R. Mayer,
Department of Psychology, Finch University of Health Sci-
ences/The Chicago Medical School; John Libby, Depart-
ment of Psychology, University of North Carolina at
Greensboro.
Yana Suchy is now at the Department of Psychology,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Andrew R. Mayer is
now at the MIND Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Preparation of this article was supported in part by Na-
tional Institute of Mental Health Grants MH49111 and
MH57714 awarded to David S. Kosson. We thank Berna-
dette Pelissier, Lawrence Lesza, Charles DeFilippo, the re-
search staff of the Federal Correctional Instititution at But-
ner, and the officers of the Lake County Jail for their
consistent cooperation during the conduct of this research.
We also thank Katherine Aires-Byrnes, Blair Benson, Nick
Doninger, Diane Goldstein, and Mary Machulda for admin-
istering the experimental task to participants and Mike
Cearbaugh for assistance in pilot-testing the paradigm.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to David S. Kosson, Department of Psychology,
Finch University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical
School, 3333 Green Bay Road, North Chicago, Illinois
60064. E-mail: Kossond@finchcms.edu
tional and cognitively intact but are unable to appre-
ciate the emotional significance of human behavior
(Cleckley, 1941). As a result, psychopaths have dif-
ficulty anticipating the emotional consequences of
their actions, do not learn from punishment, and be-
have in ways that hurt themselves and others.
There is considerable evidence consistent with the
proposal that psychopaths have difficulty appreciating
emotional stimuli, particularly in the verbal domain.
For example, incarcerated psychopathic males fail to
show the normal affective facilitation of lexical deci-
sion (Williamson, Harpur, & Hare, 1991), a finding
recently replicated in college males with psychopathic
traits (Steuerwald & Kosson, 2000) and incarcerated
psychopathic adolescent females (Cyterski, Bauer, &
Kosson, 2002). Psychopaths are also poorer at match-
ing phrases on the basis of emotional tone (William-
son, Harpur, & Hare, 1990), and, unlike nonpsycho-
paths, psychopaths’ event-related potentials do not
distinguish affective from neutral words (Williamson
et al., 1991).1
1
A study of single photon emission computed tomogra-
phy (SPECT) during affective lexical decision also indi-
cated different patterns of cerebral blood flow in specific
regions of interest in psychopaths versus nonpsychopaths.
However, the use of SPECT required some modifications in
the structure of the task, which changed the pattern of re-
sults somewhat (Intrator et al., 1997).

398
 PSYCHOPATHY AND EMOTIONAL PROCESSING
In contrast, several studies of receptive nonverbal
processing have yielded negative results. For ex-
ample, psychopaths are reportedly not deficient at
matching pictures on the basis of emotional tone
(Williamson et al., 1990) or at classifying nonverbal
emotional cues (Patterson, 1990, Study 1). Like non-
psychopaths, psychopaths exhibit the expected left-
visual field advantage in detecting which of two faces
is emotional (Day & Wong, 1996). In addition, psy-
chopaths and nonpsychopaths do not differ in af-
fective self-report, facial responsiveness, or auto-
nomic responsiveness to affective slides (Forth, 1992,
Study 1).
Nevertheless, some studies of nonverbal emotional
processing have yielded differences between psycho-
paths and nonpsychopaths. Psychopaths fail to exhibit
the narrowing of memory seen in controls exposed to
emotional scenes, although the groups do not differ in
verbal rankings of the emotional impact of these
scenes (Christianson et al., 1996). There are also
physiological differences between psychopaths and
controls while viewing specific categories of nonver-
bal emotional stimuli (Forth, 1992, Study 2; Patrick,
Bradley, & Lang, 1993). However, no published stud-
ies have reported performance deficits for psycho-
paths responding to nonverbal stimuli.
The mixed results of prior studies of nonverbal
emotional processing suggest that this issue merits
further research. One possibility is that psychopaths’
deficiencies in emotional language processing are sec-
ondary to deficits in processing language itself. There
is evidence that psychopaths are characterized by re-
duced lateralization and, in some cases, reversed lat-
eralization for linguistic processing (see Hare, 1998).
Thus, their deficits in emotional language processing
could also reflect a lack of specialization or limited
capacity of left-hemisphere resources (Hare, William-
son, & Harpur, 1988).
Alternatively, because the affective components of
language (e.g., emotional tone and connotative word
meanings), as well as the nonverbal components of
affective communication (e.g., facial expressions and
gestures), are processed primarily by right hemisphere
resources (see Bowers, Bauer, & Heilman, 1993), re-
searchers could argue that psychopaths’ emotional
language deficits reflect a dysfunction in the right
hemisphere. In fact, psychopaths, unlike controls, fail
to show potentiation of the startle reflex while view-
ing negative affective slides (Patrick et al., 1993), fail
to demonstrate an increase in brain activation in re-
sponse to a film designed to induce disgust (Forth,
1992, Study 2), and display less autonomic activity in
399
response to negative-affect (sad and fearful) faces, all
representing phenomena that have been linked to
right-hemisphere mechanisms (Angrilli et al., 1996;
Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990; Phillips et al.,
1997). If a right-hemisphere dysfunction underlies
psychopaths’ deficits in emotional processing, then
researchers might expect impairments in nonverbal as
well as verbal emotional processing.
Alternatively, the limited evidence for nonverbal
emotional-processing deficits among psychopaths
may be due to methodological shortcomings of pre-
vious studies. In particular, two types of limitations
can be identified. First, some prior measures of recep-
tive nonverbal processing might have had little dis-
criminating power, because the tasks were too easy,
such as detecting the emotional versus neutral face
(Day & Wong, 1996) or rating stimuli on valence and
arousal (Forth, 1992, Study 1; Patterson, 1990, Study
1). Additionally, some studies presented stimuli for an
unlimited amount of time (e.g., Williamson et al.,
1990), allowing extensive cognitive analysis. This
limitation is important in light of evidence that two
distinct processes contribute to understanding emo-
tional information: an initial faster process driven by
subcortical circuitry, and a subsequent slower cortical
process involving cognitive elaboration and further
interpretation (e.g., LeDoux, 1996, p. 166). Addition-
ally, some studies presented lengthy and complex
stimuli (e.g., film clips or drawings of emotional sce-
narios; Christianson et al., 1996; Williamson et al.,
1990). Although such stimuli allow a more naturalis-
tic evaluation of emotional processing in real-life situ-
ations, they have the disadvantage of providing par-
ticipants with multiple cues.
A second limitation of some previous studies is the
treatment of nonverbal emotional processing as a uni-
tary construct. Several studies collapsed across differ-
ent positive and different negative emotions (Patter-
son, 1990, Study 1; Williamson et al., 1990), or across
various classes of emotion-evoking stimuli (e.g.,
slides depicting facial expressions, objects, complex
scenes; Forth, 1992). However, considerable evidence
from imaging studies (Blair, Morris, Frith, Perrett, &
Dolan, 1999), lesion studies (Adolphs et al., 1999),
single-neuron recordings (Hasselmo, Rolls, & Baylis,
1989), and pharmacological studies (Blair & Curran,
1999) indicates that processing different (e.g., facial
vs. nonfacial) stimulus classes and different emotions
(e.g., disgust vs. fear) depends on partly overlapping
but partly distinct cortical and subcortical functional
networks (for a review, see Davidson & Irwin, 1999).
For example, Huntington’s disease patients are defi-
400 KOSSON, SUCHY, MAYER, AND LIBBY
cient at recognizing facial disgust but not other facial
emotions (Sprengelmeyer et al., 1997).
In fact, differential sensitivity to specific nonverbal
emotional stimuli has been reported even among psy-
chopathic individuals. For example, Forth (1992,
Study 2) reported reduced electrocortical responsive-
ness in psychopaths to a disgust induction but not to
an amusement induction. More recently, unlike non-
psychopaths, psychopaths have been reported to dis-
play startle inhibition (rather than potentiation) while
viewing slides depicting mutilation and victimization
of others, but not while viewing depictions of direct
threats, such as a pointed gun (Levenston, Patrick,
Bradley, & Lang, 2000). Finally, psychopaths display
less autonomic activity compared with nonpsycho-
paths while viewing sad or fearful faces but not while
viewing more general (nonfacial) threatening stimuli
(Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith, 1997). Although these
studies do not distinguish whether psychopaths’ defi-
cits are limited to either specific emotions or to spe-
cific classes of emotional stimuli (e.g., facial vs. non-
facial), they do raise the possibility that psychopaths
may be characterized by specific difficulties in pro-
cessing cues for sadness, fear, or disgust, but not by a
global deficit in nonverbal emotional processing.
In summary, evidence for emotional-processing
deficits in psychopathic individuals is more consistent
for verbal than for nonverbal stimuli. However, meth-
odological shortcomings of earlier studies of nonver-
bal emotional processing, as well as lack of attention
to specific emotions and to specific classes of affec-
tive stimuli, limit the conclusions that can be drawn
from these studies. Further, most earlier studies have
not examined links between the emotional-processing
deficits of psychopaths and abnormal hemispheric
specialization (cf. Day & Wong, 1996). Thus, addi-
tional studies of psychopaths’ ability to classify non-
verbal emotional information appear warranted.
The purpose of the present study was twofold. First,
we aimed to improve on previous tests of receptive
nonverbal emotional processing in psychopathic of-
fenders in the following ways: (a) by presenting a
consistent type of emotional stimulus to avoid con-
founding different types of emotions with different
stimulus classes, (b) by presenting stimuli out of con-
text to minimize use of nonemotional contextual cues
and semantic knowledge in judging emotion, (c) by
presenting stimuli for brief intervals to prevent exten-
sive cognitive analysis or elaboration, and (d) by pre-
senting enough examples of each emotion to permit
analysis of performance in classifying each of several
specific emotions. To that end, we designed a facial
affect recognition task using previously validated
stimuli (e.g., Alvarado, 1996; Calder, Burton, Miller,
Young, & Akamatsu, 2001; Ekman & Friesen, 1975;
Ekman et al., 1987; Johnsen, Thayer, & Hugdahl,
1995; Lundqvist & Dimberg, 1995; Yik & Russell,
1999; Young, Rowland, Calder, & Etcoff, 1997) con-
sisting of individual faces expressing basic emotions.
Second, to examine whether any nonverbal emo-
tional deficits in psychopaths are linked to hemi-
spheric abnormalities, we decided to manipulate the
relative degree of activation of right- versus left-
hemisphere resources. To that end, we required half
the participants to use only their left hand for respond-
ing (to promote greater activation of right-hemisphere
resources) and the other half to use only their right
hand (to increase activation of left-hemisphere re-
sources). As predicted by both Kinsbourne’s (1983)
theory of selective activation and the premotor theory
of attention (Rizzolatti & Camarda, 1987; Rizzolatti
& Craighero, 1998), differential priming of hemi-
sphere-specific resources through voluntary motor re-
sponses has been demonstrated in earlier studies of
both nonclinical (Baker, Donoghue, & Sanes, 1999;
Kinsbourne & Hicks, 1978; Lassen & Ingvar, 1990;
Urbanczyk, Angel, & Kennelly, 1988) and neurologi-
cal populations (Halligan & Marshall, 1989; Robert-
son & North, 1993, 1994). Kinsbourne’s theory also
provides a straightforward way to test the adequacy of
the manipulation: Because facial affect recognition is
primarily a right-hemisphere task (Bowers, Bauer,
Coslett, & Heilman, 1985; McLaren & Bryson, 1987),
and because (according to Kinsbourne and Rizzolatti)
using the left hand to respond should activate right
hemisphere-specific resources, performance should
be better for those nonpsychopaths responding with
the left hand than for those responding with the right
hand.
The current study was designed to allow simulta-
neous tests of three competing hypotheses. If psycho-
paths are generally deficient at processing emotional
stimuli (the general emotional-processing deficit hy-
pothesis), then the methodological improvements
implemented in the present study should yield evi-
dence for less accurate classification of facial emotion
by psychopaths than by nonpsychopaths. However, if
psychopaths are deficient only at processing specific
facial emotions (specific emotional-processing deficit
hypothesis), then deficits may be evident only for a
specific category of emotions, for example, sad and
fearful expressions (Blair et al., 1997) or disgust ex-
pressions (Forth, 1992; Levenston et al., 2000). Al-
ternatively, if psychopaths’ emotional-processing
 PSYCHOPATHY AND EMOTIONAL PROCESSING 401

deficits are limited to verbal information (the emo- Table 1

tional-language processing deficit hypothesis), then Characteristics of Participants in PCL-R-Defined Groups
no deficits should be evident on the current task. Psychopaths Nonpsychopaths
The study also allowed us to examine whether psy- (n ⳱ 34) (n ⳱ 33)
chopaths’ deficits in nonverbal affective processing Measure M SD M SD
are associated with hemisphere-specific abnormali- a
PCL-R 33.65 2.77 14.96 4.07
ties. If psychopaths are characterized by a dysfunction
Age (years) 27.00 6.57 27.00 6.46
in right-hemisphere emotional processing mecha-
Handedness 11.90 1.31 11.85 1.27
nisms (the right-hemisphere dysfunction hypothesis), WAIS-R IQ 93.79 11.53 96.09 9.74
then they should perform more poorly than nonpsy- WASa 16.65 7.18 10.22 7.08
chopaths on the current task when using their left % African American 41.18 48.48
hand to respond. The reduced lateralization hypoth- Note. PCL-R ⳱ Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (Hare, 1991);
esis also predicts that psychopaths should perform WAIS-R IQ ⳱ Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised IQ, as
more poorly than nonpsychopaths when using their estimated by the Shipley Institute of Living Scale (Zachary, 1986);
WAS ⳱ Welsh Anxiety Scale (Welsh, 1956).
left hand to classify affect. However, because reduced a
Groups differ significantly at p < .001.
lateralization implies that processing resources are
more distributed across the two hemispheres, this hy-
pothesis also predicts that psychopaths will outper- reading English, as indicated by a documented read-
form nonpsychopaths when using their right hand to ing level below fourth grade or by lack of fluency in
respond. Reduced lateralization could even result in reading a portion of the consent form aloud. Partici-
psychopaths not displaying the right-hemisphere (left- pants consisted of 151 male inmates selected from a
hand) advantage in affective processing expected for federal correctional facility in North Carolina (n ⳱
nonpsychopaths. However, psychopaths should not 37) and from a county jail in northern Illinois (n ⳱
decode emotion better with the right hand than with 114). From among these, 14 participants were elimi-
the left hand, as this result would suggest reversed nated due to incomplete data; 12 due to estimates
lateralization (described below).2 The reversed later- of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised
alization hypothesis, like the reduced lateralization (WAIS-R) IQs below 70 (i.e., reflecting “significantly
hypothesis, predicts poorer performance for psycho- subaverage intellectual functioning”; Diagnostic and
paths than for nonpsychopaths when using the left Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.;
hand, and better performance for psychopaths than American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. 39) based
nonpsychopaths when using the right hand. However, on the revised Shipley Institute of Living Scale
only the reversed lateralization hypothesis requires (SILS-R; Zachary, 1986); and 19 because their scores
that those psychopaths using the right hand perform on a self-report handedness measure (Chapman &
affect recognition better than those using the left Chapman, 1987) indicated they were not right-
hand. handed. Of the 106 remaining participants, 39 failed
Finally, based on evidence that some deficits ob- to meet diagnostic criteria for inclusion in either the
served in Caucasian psychopaths do not replicate in psychopath (P) group or the nonpsychopath (NP)
African American psychopaths (Doninger & Kosson, group (described in the Procedures section), resulting
2001; Kosson, 1998; Kosson, Smith, & Newman, in a final sample of 34 P and 33 NP participants.
1990; Thornquist & Zuckerman, 1995), we also in- Characteristics of the sample are shown in Table 1.
cluded ethnicity in initial analyses. In the event of Ps did not differ from NPs in racial composition, age,
significant Psychopathy × Ethnicity interactions, we intelligence, or handedness. However, Ps had higher
planned follow-up analyses to address whether any
group differences were moderated by ethnicity.
2
Although investigators have sometimes evaluated re-
Method duced asymmetry hypotheses with laterality coefficients
Participants (e.g., Day & Wong, 1996), Chapman and Chapman (1988)
have emphasized that such coefficients are problematic, be-
Before participation, all prospective participants cause the magnitude of the right- versus left-difference
were screened for exclusion criteria: age of 45 or score, like other difference scores, is dependent on the over-
older; presence of overt psychotic features or use of all level of performance accuracy in the conditions under
psychotropic medication; and lack of proficiency in study.
402 KOSSON, SUCHY, MAYER, AND LIBBY
scores on the Welsh Anxiety Scale (WAS; Welsh,
1956), often considered a measure of negative affect,
t(61) ⳱ 3.58, p ⳱ .001. In addition, federal prison
participants were older than those in the county jail,
t(65) ⳱ 2.46, p ⳱ .017; scored lower on the WAS,
t(61) ⳱ 2.55, p ⳱ .013; and scored lower on the
Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL-R; Hare,
1991), t(63) ⳱ 2.60, p ⳱ .011. In the final sample,
8.8% of the P group and 33.3% of the NP group
comprised federal prison inmates. The two popula-
tions were otherwise comparable with respect to in-
telligence, handedness, and racial composition.3
Participants were randomly assigned to one of two
experimental conditions, with one group using their
left hand (LH) to respond, and the other using their
right hand (RH) to respond. These assignments re-
sulted in 17 P and 18 NP participants in the LH con-
dition, and 17 P and 15 NP participants in the RH
condition. LH and RH participants did not differ in
racial composition, age, intelligence, handedness, or
scores on the WAS. In addition, P and NP partici-
pants, within LH and RH groups did not differ in any
of the above characteristics, with the exception of the
WAS; as in the full sample, P participants in both LH
and RH conditions exhibited higher WAS scores,
t(32) ⳱ 3.03, p ⳱ .005; and, t(30) ⳱ 2.24, p ⳱ .034,
respectively.4
Tasks and Equipment
Facial affect recognition task. Participants were
asked to classify the emotional expression on each of
30 adult male and female Caucasian faces, using
slides of prototypical facial affect sometimes referred
to as pictures of facial affect (Ekman & Friesen,
1975). Faces were projected by a Kodak Ektagraphic
slide projector, controlled by a Zenith 286 computer
containing a Labmaster DMA Board (Scientific So-
lutions; Mentor, OH) via software written for this pur-
pose. The same computer and slide projector were
used to administer experimental tasks at both the fed-
eral and county institutions. Participants indicated
which one of six emotions was displayed on each face
by pressing a key on a computer keyboard. The six
keys were labeled “happy,” “sad,” “angry,” “afraid,”
“surprised,” and “disgusted.” Each slide was pro-
jected onto the center of a 13.0 × 9.25-cm screen, 14.5
cm to the right of the center of the monitor and sub-
tended approximately 22.3 × 17.3 degrees of visual
angle. Each slide was displayed for 1 s, after which
the slide projector automatically advanced to an
empty chamber. Participants were given 2.5 s to clas-
sify each slide. No accuracy feedback was provided,
and each trial began 2 s following completion of the
previous trial. Each participant classified 30 facial af-
fect slides, 5 for each emotion. Accuracy of classifi-
cation was recorded.
Procedure
After eligible inmates were informed about the
study, those providing written consent completed a
semistructured interview and self-report scales during
the first day of their participation. The interview as-
sessed each inmate’s childhood and family experi-
ences, current relationships with family and friends,
school history, work history, sexual history, and
criminal history. Institutional file material was re-
viewed following the interview. The information
gathered in the interview and file review was used to
complete the PCL-R. Using standard cutoffs recom-
mended by Hare (1991), participants receiving PCL-R
scores of 30 or higher were classified as Ps, and those
with scores of 20 or lower were classified as NPs. As
noted in the Participants section, those who were not
classified as either P or NP (i.e., attaining PCL-R
scores between 20 and 30) were not included in analy-
ses.
Subsequent to the interview, the self-report mea-
sures listed below were administered.
SILS (Zachary, 1986). The SILS was used to es-
timate WAIS-R Full Scale IQ. This measure consists
of 40 recognition vocabulary items and 20 verbal ana-
lytical reasoning items and contains well-validated
normative tables for converting composite scores into
WAIS-R Full Scale IQ estimates.
Chapman Handedness Scale (Chapman & Chap-
man, 1987). This questionnaire consists of 13 ques-
tions about which hand a person typically uses during
3
To further examine the appropriateness of combining
participants from the two settings for analyses, we com-
pared correlations between Psychopathy Checklist—
Revised scores (Hare, 1991) and other variables for the full
sample versus correlations for participants from the county
jail sample alone. The pattern of correlations was extremely
similar. Of eight variables examined, the largest change in
magnitude of a correlation was .08, suggesting that com-
bining participants from the two settings does not distort the
pattern of relationships.
4
All other group differences within conditions were not
reliable. The only case in which the t value exceeded 1.0
was for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised
estimate in the right-hand condition, where psychopaths
scored four points lower than nonpsychopaths, t(30) ⳱
1.28, p > .20, d ⳱ 0.47.
 PSYCHOPATHY AND EMOTIONAL PROCESSING
a variety of fine and gross motor activities and cor-
relates highly with behavioral measures of handed-
ness (Chapman & Chapman, 1987). Participants re-
ceived 1 point for each activity they indicated
completing with the right hand, 0.5 points for each
activity they indicated completing with both hands,
and 0 points for each activity they indicated complet-
ing with the left. Men scoring 8.5 or higher were
classified as right-handed. This scoring system clas-
sified 84.6% of the men who participated in this study
as right-handed.
WAS (Welsh, 1956). The WAS is a self-report
measure of general or trait anxiety that has been
widely used in psychopathy studies (Schmitt & New-
man, 1999) and has been interpreted as reflecting
negative affectivity (Watson & Clark, 1984).
The facial affect classification task was adminis-
tered on a separate day either by one of two experi-
menters at the federal prison, or by one of four ex-
perimenters at the county jail. Experimenters were
unaware of participants’ psychopathy scores. After
receiving instructions, each participant was seated in
front of the computer and instructed to face the screen
on which stimuli were projected. Each participant
completed blocks of five practice trials that were re-
peated as necessary until participants reached the
threshold of 50% correct. During practice trials, par-
ticipants were reminded about task requirements as
needed. Following successful completion of practice
trials, participants completed 30 trials of the facial
affect classification task. In some cases, participants
subsequently completed other behavioral tasks unre-
lated to the current study. Whereas county jail inmates
were paid for participation, federal prison rules pro-
hibit payments to inmates. Therefore, federal prison
participants were offered snacks on the basis of their
performance as an incentive for participation.
Results
All probability values reported are two-tailed. For
preliminary and principal analyses, an alpha of .05
was used.
Preliminary Analyses
Statistical assumptions. The assumptions of nor-
mality and homogeneity of variance were examined
both for the total percentage of stimuli classified cor-
rectly and for the percentage of stimuli classified cor-
rectly within each of the six emotion categories. Total
accuracy scores were normally distributed, as were
scores for anger, disgust, and fear. However, there
403
was significant negative skewness for happiness, sad-
ness, and surprise (sk ⳱ −3.64, sk ⳱ −.96, and sk ⳱
−1.57, respectively; p < .05; D’Agostino & Tietjen,
1973) and significant kurtosis for happiness (kr ⳱
13.91, p < .01; D’Agostino & Tietjen, 1973). There-
fore, only the three normally distributed emotions (an-
ger, fear, and disgust) were included in the principal
analyses. However, for completeness, nonparametric
analyses for happiness, sadness, and surprise are in-
cluded in the Follow-Up Analyses section in which
specific emotions are examined individually. Lev-
ene’s (1960) test of equality of variance revealed no
violations of the homogeneity of variance assumption.
Examination of the hand assignment manipulation.
To examine the design assumption that left-handed
responding would increase reliance on right-hemi-
sphere resources, and that right-handed responding
would increase involvement of left-hemisphere re-
sources, we compared performance in the two condi-
tions among NP participants. As expected, collapsing
across all six emotions, LH NPs outperformed RH
NPs, t(31) ⳱ 2.47, p ⳱ .019 (M ⳱ 77.78 vs. 67.80,
SDs ⳱ 10.41 and 12.78, respectively), d ⳱ 0.89.
Principal Analyses
To permit meaningful comparisons of the two
groups on individual emotions and across emotions,
we equated anger, fear, and disgust on difficulty by
converting the percent correct scores for each emotion
category to z scores, and using these z scores as de-
pendent variables in the following omnibus analyses.
First, to examine the effect of psychopathy and
hand assignment on the overall profile of the three
emotions, and to examine the possibility of Psychop-
athy × Ethnicity interactions, we conducted a 3 (emo-
tion category) × 2 (psychopathy) × 2 (hand assign-
ment) × 2 (ethnicity) mixed multivariate analysis of
variance (MANOVA), with emotion category repre-
senting the within-subjects factor and the remaining
factors varying between subjects. The MANOVA
yielded a two-way Psychopathy × Emotion Category
interaction, ⌳(2, 62) ⳱ 5.18, p ⳱ .008, suggesting
that Ps and NPs differed in their overall profile across
the three emotions.
Second, to examine the effect of psychopathy, hand
assignment, and ethnicity on individual emotions (i.e.,
univariate relationships), we conducted a 3 (emotion
category) × 2 (psychopathy) × 2 (hand assignment) ×
2 (ethnicity) mixed ANOVA. Again, a Psychopathy ×
Emotion Category interaction emerged, F(2, 126) ⳱
5.01, p ⳱ .008, suggesting that psychopaths per-
formed differently than nonpsychopaths on individual
404 KOSSON, SUCHY, MAYER, AND LIBBY
Table 2
Mean Percentages of Stimuli Identified Correctly and Standard Deviations Collapsing
Across all Six Emotions and for Specific Emotions
Group
Psychopaths
(n ⳱ 34)
Emotion M SD
Overall 71.38 12.53
Anger 70.00 25.70
Fear 45.29 25.25
Disgusta 48.82 26.14
Happiness 97.65 8.19
Sadness 77.65 24.99
Surprise 88.82 14.09
a
Groups differ significantly at p < .05.
emotions. This result, together with the absence of a
main effect of psychopathy (F < 1), suggests a spe-
cific rather than global deficit in emotional processing
for psychopaths. Finally, a univariate Psychopathy
× Hand Assignment interaction, F(1, 63) ⳱ 5.28,
p ⳱ .025, indicated different effects of the hand-
assignment conditions for the two psychopathy
groups.5 Because there were no main effects or inter-
actions for ethnicity, this demographic variable is not
discussed further.
Follow-Up Analyses
Specific versus global emotional-processing defi-
cits. Further examination of the specific emotions
revealed that Ps performed more poorly than NPs in
classifying disgust faces, t(65) ⳱ 2.47, p ⳱ .016, d
⳱ 0.61. Neither of the other differences were reliable,
t(65) < 1 for fear; t(65) ⳱ 1.38, p ⳱ .172, d ⳱ 0.34
for anger. Mann–Whitney U tests for classification of
happiness, sadness, and surprise also revealed no
group differences, with mean ranks ranging from
32.10 to 35.95, Mann–Whitney Us (34, 33) ranging
from 496 to 561, all ps > .20. Means and standard
deviations (expressed as percent correct for ease of
interpretation) for overall affect recognition and for
specific emotion categories are shown in Table 2.
These findings are consistent with hypotheses for spe-
cific emotional-processing deficits in psychopaths but
not with either general emotional deficits or deficits
only in processing emotional language.
Right-hemisphere dysfunction versus reduced lat-
eralization versus reversed lateralization. Follow-
up examination of the Psychopathy × Hand Assign-
ment interaction revealed that, consistent with all
Nonpsychopaths
(n ⳱ 33)
M SD d
73.24 12.43 0.15
61.21 26.43 0.34
45.45 28.45 0.01
65.45 28.84 0.61
98.18 5.84 0.08
78.18 25.18 0.02
90.91 15.08 0.15
three lateralization hypotheses, Ps performed more
poorly than NPs when required to use the left hand for
responding, t(33) ⳱ 2.08, p ⳱ .046, d ⳱ 0.72. Con-
trary to the reduced and reversed lateralization hy-
potheses, Ps did not outperform NPs when using the
right hand, t(30) ⳱ 1.0, d ⳱ 0.37. Finally, consistent
with the reduced lateralization hypothesis (but con-
trary to the reversed lateralization hypothesis), no dif-
ferences between left- and right-handed responding
were found for Ps, t(32) < 1. Although Ps’ mean
accuracy was higher with the right hand than with the
left hand, the effect size for this comparison (0.19)
was quite small. These findings are summarized in
Figure 1.
Supplementary Analyses
We also examined the classification of specific
emotions with each hand, again using independent t
tests for anger, fear, and disgust, and the Mann-
Whitney U test for happiness, sadness, and surprise.
To reduce alpha inflation, we used an alpha of .008
(i.e., .05/6) in evaluating comparisons for each hand-
assignment condition. As shown in Table 3, during
5
The multivariate analysis of variance was also repeated
using all six emotions (with all six accuracy scores con-
verted to z scores). The results yielded a multivariate
Wilks’s lambda (5, 59) ⳱ 2.59, p ⳱ .035; as well as a
univariate, F(5, 315) ⳱ 2.60, p ⳱ .025, three-way interac-
tion between psychopathy, hand assignment, and emotion
category. In this analysis, the Psychopathy × Emotion Cat-
egory interaction was not statistically significant in the mul-
tivariate analysis, Wilks’s lambda (5, 59) ⳱ 2.02, p ⳱ .090,
or in the univariate analysis, F(5, 315) ⳱ 1.87, p ⳱ .099.
 PSYCHOPATHY AND EMOTIONAL PROCESSING 405

potheses, NPs exhibited a significant left hand advan-

tage for anger, t(31) ⳱ 4.22, p < .001, d ⳱ 1.52;
whereas the analysis for Ps failed to approach statis-
tical significance, t(32) < 1.

Discussion

The present study examined whether male psycho-

Figure 1. Accuracy of psychopaths’ and nonpsychopaths’
facial affect recognition when completed with the left ver-
sus the right hand. In each pair, left bar represents psycho-
paths and right bar represents nonpsychopaths.
left-handed responding, Ps performed more poorly
than NPs on disgust, t(33) ⳱ 3.47, p ⳱ .001, d ⳱
1.21 (M ⳱ 44.71 vs. 72.22, SDs ⳱ 24.10 and 22.90,
respectively); but did not differ on other emotions, all
ts (33) < 1, Mann–Whitney Us (34, 33) ⳱ 121–145,
all ps > .10. Contrary to expectations, Ps also outper-
formed NPs on anger during right-handed responding,
t(30) ⳱ 2.95, p ⳱ .006, d ⳱ 1.08 (M ⳱ 70.59 vs.
44.00, SD ⳱ 27.49 and 22.93, respectively) but did
not differ on other emotions (all ts < 1), all Mann–
Whitney Us (34, 33) ⳱ 112.50–123.50, all ps > .10.
Finally, because the superiority of P over NP par-
ticipants on anger during right-handed responding
was partly consistent with the reversed lateralization
hypothesis, Ps and NPs were also examined sepa-
rately for differences between left- and right-handed
responding on this emotion. Consistent with the right-
hemisphere dysfunction and reduced lateralization hy-
pathic offenders are characterized by deficits in non-
verbal emotional processing and whether such deficits
are specific or general in nature. Results indicate that
psychopathic offenders do exhibit deficits in nonver-
bal emotional processing, at least with respect to fa-
cial affect recognition. However, in this study, their
deficits were not general in nature but rather were
evident only under specific circumstances. In particu-
lar, there was evidence that deficits were specific to
the classification of facial disgust and to conditions
designed to minimize the involvement of left-hemi-
sphere mechanisms.
The finding that psychopaths were deficient in clas-
sifying disgust facial expressions when collapsing
across the two hand assignments was partially consis-
tent with hypotheses for specific affective deficits.
These findings also converged with earlier findings by
Forth (1992), who demonstrated differences among
psychopaths and nonpsychopaths in response to a dis-
gust induction but not an amusement induction. Cur-
rent findings also fit with the recent report that, unlike
nonpsychopaths, psychopaths failed to show startle
potentiation while viewing affective slides depicting
mutilation (Levenston et al., 2000). As noted earlier,
both the affective modulation of startle responses and
the experience of disgust have been linked to right-

Table 3
Mean Percentages of Stimuli Identified Correctly and Standard Deviations as a Function
of Emotion Category and Hand Assignment
Left hand Right hand
P NP P NP
(n ⳱ 17) (n ⳱ 18) (n ⳱ 17) (n ⳱ 15)
Emotion M SD M SD M SD M SD
Overall 70.22 11.14 77.78 10.42 72.55 14.02 67.80 12.78
Anger 69.41 24.61 75.56 20.07 70.59a 27.49 44.00a 22.93
Fear 41.18 24.97 43.38 28.49 49.41 25.61 48.00 29.08
Disgust 44.71a 24.01 72.22a 22.90 52.94 28.23 57.33 33.69
Happiness 98.82 4.85 96.67 7.67 96.47 10.57 100.00 0.00
Sadness 77.65 25.38 82.22 18.01 77.65 25.38 73.33 31.77
Surprise 89.41 17.49 96.67 7.67 88.24 10.15 84.00 18.82
Note. P ⳱ psychopath; NP ⳱ nonpsychopath.
a
Groups differ significantly at p < .008.
406 KOSSON, SUCHY, MAYER, AND LIBBY
hemisphere mechanisms (Bradley, Cuthbert, & Lang,
1991, 1996; Forth, 1992; Phillips et al., 1997).
Although current findings corroborate the hypoth-
esis that psychopaths are characterized by specific
deficits in emotional processing, they are contrary to
the proposal that psychopaths are specifically defi-
cient at recognizing facial cues for distress in others
(Blair et al., 1997). In particular, the present study did
not provide evidence that psychopaths are deficient at
classifying fear and sadness. With respect to sadness,
negative findings may simply reflect insufficient vari-
ance in our data, as inspection of accuracy results for
the six different emotions revealed that sad faces, like
happy and surprised faces, were easy to classify. In
fact, 44% of psychopaths and 42% of nonpsychopaths
correctly identified 100% of the sad faces. Thus, al-
though we were successful at producing a discrimi-
nating task overall (i.e., collapsing across all six emo-
tions), it appears that the current task did not provide
a sensitive enough measure for obtaining individual
differences in the ability to categorize certain specific
emotions. Consequently, the possibility of specific
deficits in classifying sadness, happiness, or surprise
stimuli remains viable.
However, with respect to fear, the absence of group
differences does not appear to reflect limited variance
or low power. Additionally, as can be seen from the
means and the effect sizes presented in Table 2, psy-
chopaths’ ability to recognize fearful expressions is
virtually identical to that of nonpsychopaths. Thus,
the apparent discrepancy between the present study
and previous findings of Blair et al. (1997) may re-
flect differences in the design and the dependent vari-
able examined. Specifically, Blair et al. (1997) found
that, when presented with fearful and sad human ex-
pressions, psychopaths exhibited less autonomic re-
sponding than nonpsychopaths. Given our results, it
appears that psychopaths’ autonomic hyporeactivity
when faced with fearful facial expressions may not be
due to an inability to interpret or label such expres-
sions, but rather may reflect a failure to trigger ap-
propriate autonomic activity in response to these
stimuli. Given the links between the amygdala and
cingulate and electrodermal activity (Peper, Karcher,
Wohlfarth, Reinshagen, & LeDoux, 2001; Tranel &
Damasio, 1994), such reduced autonomic responsive-
ness is in fact consistent with recent evidence for re-
duced hemodynamic activity in these areas in psycho-
pathic, as compared with nonpsychopathic, inmates
during affective language processing (Kiehl et al.,
2001). It should also be noted that, consistent with the
dissociation between fear and disgust found in this
study, prior research has shown the recognition of
facial fear and facial disgust to be subserved in part by
different neuroanatomic networks. In particular, dis-
gust recognition appears to rely more on the insular-
striatal system (e.g., Calder, Keane, Manes, Antoun,
& Young, 2000), whereas fear recognition relies more
on the amygdala (for a review, see Davidson & Irwin,
1999).6
Finally, contrary to expectations, the present results
also suggest that psychopaths may be relatively better
than nonpsychopaths at detecting anger, particularly
when allowed to rely partly on left-hemisphere re-
sources (i.e., when responding with their right hand).
Although this result was not predicted, and therefore
could represent a spurious finding, it does afford in-
triguing speculations regarding some anomalies in
psychopaths’ interpretation of the polarity of emo-
tional meanings. In particular, whereas nonpsycho-
paths classified anger more accurately when using the
left hand than when using the right hand, psychopaths
were virtually identical in their performance with ei-
ther hand (d ⳱ 0.05). In this context, the fact that
psychopaths were superior to nonpsychopaths on an-
ger during right-handed responding is consistent
with the possibility that their classifications of anger
are associated with a greater involvement of left-
hemisphere resources than is usual in nonpsychopaths
and fits with links between anger and left-hemisphere
activation (Harmon-Jones & Allen, 1998; Harmon-
Jones & Sigelman, 2001). In contrast, the left-hand
advantage exhibited by nonpsychopaths suggests the
possibility that their processing of angry expressions
depends more on right-hemisphere mechanisms (e.g.,
a “withdrawal” response; Tomarken, Davidson,
Wheeler, & Kinney, 1992).
In recent years, anger has received substantial at-
tention from psychopathy researchers. Partly consis-
tent with our results, some studies have suggested that
psychopathy is associated with normal (i.e., unim-
paired) responsiveness to threatening stimuli (Blair et
al., 1997; Steuerwald & Kosson, 2000). Others have
6
Using a different facial affect recognition paradigm,
Blair et al. (2002) have recently reported that psychopaths
are especially poor at identifying fearful facial expressions.
In this study, psychopathic individuals were also less sen-
sitive than nonpsychopathic individuals at classifying affec-
tive expressions in general. However, because the studies
differ in the samples tested, the paradigms and the overall
pattern of findings, the reasons for the discrepancies are
unclear.
 PSYCHOPATHY AND EMOTIONAL PROCESSING
suggested that Ps are less responsive than nonpsycho-
paths to direct threats (Levenston et al., 2000).7 The
possibility of superiority in decoding anger is also
consistent with at least one recent finding. Doninger
and Kosson (2001) reported that psychopaths are
more likely than nonpsychopaths to consider the di-
mension of aggressiveness–nonaggressiveness in ap-
praising others’ interpersonal behavior but are not
more likely to evaluate others as aggressive per se.
This study suggested the possibility that psychopaths
may be characterized by heightened attention to ag-
gressive features, which could lead them to superior
processing of anger under some conditions. In fact,
current findings (see Table 3) provide evidence that
psychopaths may exhibit a significant advantage in
recognizing anger under conditions designed to in-
crease the involvement of left-hemisphere resources.
However, no earlier studies have directly addressed
psychopaths’ ability to decode facial displays of
anger.
Facial Affect Classification and
Hemispheric Asymmetry
In addition to examining whether psychopaths ex-
hibit specific versus general deficits in emotional pro-
cessing, we also examined possible effects of abnor-
mal hemispheric lateralization. Psychopaths appear to
be, overall, less accurate than nonpsychopaths on fa-
cial affect recognition under conditions designed to
promote reliance on right-hemisphere resources. This
finding is consistent with the possibility that psycho-
paths’ deficit in nonverbal processing may reflect ei-
ther a dysfunction in right-hemisphere emotional pro-
cessing mechanisms or a reduction in hemispheric
asymmetry for processing emotion. Psychopaths’ per-
formance deficit was not due to differences between
groups in intellectual functioning (although there was
a nonsignificant difference in IQ in the right-hand
condition, the groups were virtually identical in intel-
ligence in the left-hand condition, d < 0.01). As noted
in the introduction, right-hemisphere dysfunction is
also consistent with earlier reports of reduced right
frontal activity in psychopaths while watching a dis-
gust film (Forth, 1992) and with suggestions that the
abnormal affective modulation of startle responses in
psychopaths (Patrick, 1994, 1996) is mediated by
right-hemisphere mechanisms (Bradley et al., 1991,
1996).
However, current results also appear largely con-
sistent with the reduced lateralization hypothesis. In
particular, the combination of a small and nonsignif-
icant difference between psychopaths’ performance
407
using the right versus the left hand (d ⳱ 0.19), and a
nonsignificant but nontrivial difference (d ⳱ 0.37)
between psychopaths and nonpsychopaths using the
right hand for responding suggests that reduced later-
alization also provides a persuasive explanation for
the overall pattern of findings. As such, current results
add to a growing body of evidence that psychopaths
may be characterized by reduced asymmetry in lan-
guage processing (Hare & McPherson, 1984), nonlin-
guistic cognitive function (Kosson, 1998), motor
dominance (Mayer & Kosson, 2000), and emotional
processing (Day & Wong, 1996).
Because psychopaths performed only slightly and
nonsignificantly better with the right hand than with
the left hand, current results do not suggest reversed
lateralization for nonverbal affective processing. Even
if this difference were statistically reliable, the mag-
nitude of this effect size is substantially smaller than
that observed in the current sample of nonpsychopaths
(0.86), further arguing against reversed lateralization
in psychopaths.
Current results also appear relevant to one addi-
tional hypothesis regarding lateralization anomalies
among psychopaths: the left-hemisphere activation
(LHA) hypothesis (Kosson, 1998; Kosson, Miller,
Byrnes, Leveroni, & Mayer, 2002). According to this
hypothesis, psychopaths exhibit deficits on a variety
of tasks only under conditions that differentially ac-
tivate left hemisphere-specific resources. In previous
studies of LHA, differential activation of left-
hemisphere resources has typically been accom-
plished by a combination of (a) differential presenta-
tion of target stimuli to the right- versus left-visual
field or ear and (b) requirements for a greater fre-
quency of responding with the right versus left hand.
Because right-handed responding in this study did not
yield deficient performance for psychopaths, re-
searchers may argue that the present findings contra-
dict the LHA hypothesis. However, it must be borne
in mind that the right-hand condition in this study was
not designed to produce greater LHA than right-
hemisphere activation: This study did not use differ-
ential visual field presentation, and the facial stimuli
7
Several studies indicate that psychopaths display social
cognitive biases which lead them to attribute excessive hos-
tility or anger to others (Blackburn & Lee-Evans, 1985;
Serin, 1991). Such biases may suggest that psychopaths
misclassify other facial cues as anger but have no direct
implications for psychopaths’ ability to decode actual dis-
plays of anger.
408 KOSSON, SUCHY, MAYER, AND LIBBY
were expected to engage primarily right-hemisphere
resources (Sergent, 1995). Thus, it is likely that par-
ticipants in the right-hand condition were able to use
both right- and left-hemisphere resources in meeting
task requirements. Indeed, the current study provides
no way of examining the relative degree to which the
two hemispheres participated in participants’ perfor-
mance of the task.
Limitations
Several limitations of the current study should be
emphasized. First, although the present study was
generally successful at addressing limitations of ear-
lier research with respect to selection and presentation
of nonverbal affective stimuli, three of the emotions
used in this study (happiness, sadness, and surprise)
were too easy to classify in spite of the brief duration
for which stimuli were presented; consequently, in-
terpretation of the negative findings for these emo-
tions is unwarranted. Still briefer presentations, or the
use of degraded stimuli, or other novel paradigms that
permit sensitive assessments of emotional processing
(see, e.g., Blair & Curran, 1999) may improve future
assessments of psychopaths’ ability to classify these
emotions.
Second, because psychopathic inmates reported
greater negative affectivity than nonpsychopathic in-
mates, it is possible that the nonverbal emotional-
processing deficits observed in this study are specific
to psychopaths with high negative affectivity. In fact,
Patterson (1990) reported that a subgroup of psycho-
paths high in negative affectivity was deficient in
classifying stimuli presented in several nonverbal
channels and speculated that psychopaths’ ability to
classify emotion may be moderated by levels of nega-
tive affectivity. Our sample size did not permit sepa-
rate analyses for groups low in negative affectivity; in
addition, adjusting for individual differences in nega-
tive affectivity through analysis of covariance is in-
appropriate when the groups differ on the covariate
(Miller & Chapman, 2001).
Third, it remains possible that the specific deficits
observed in psychopathic participants in this study are
actually caused by differences in discriminating
power between the two conditions administered.
However, inspection of the group means for nonpsy-
chopaths actually suggests that the left-hand condition
was further from optimal difficulty than the right-
hand condition; thus, the observed group difference in
the left-hand condition does not appear to be an arti-
fact of this condition being more discriminating than
the right-hand condition. Nevertheless, studies that
implement the design suggestions of Chapman and
Chapman (1988; see also Miller, Chapman, Chapman,
& Collins, 1995) would provide more conclusive tests
of the specificity of emotional-processing deficits in
psychopaths.
Fourth, several aspects of the design of this study
limit the kinds of conclusions that can be drawn from
this study. For example, the absence of response la-
tency data precludes examination of whether psycho-
paths’ poorer accuracy is a function of faster re-
sponses to affective stimuli. Although response
latency indices are generally more sensitive where
accuracy is higher, speed-accuracy tradeoffs in this
task remain possible. In addition, that there were more
negative valence than positive valence emotional
stimuli may have influenced observed findings. There
are suggestions that psychopaths sometimes confuse
the valence of emotional stimuli (Williamson et al.,
1990), and future studies should examine the impact
of valence on emotional processing in psychopaths.
Similarly, given the absence of a noncriminal control
group, we cannot be certain that the nonpsychopathic
criminals in this study performed as well as a non-
criminal sample would. Their performance was con-
sistent with design expectations based on the non-
criminal literature; however, it is possible that
criminality is associated with deficits in nonverbal
emotional processing. Further, although participants
were screened for psychotic features and psychotropic
medications, and trait anxiety was assessed, there was
no systematic evaluation for Axis I disorders (Ameri-
can Psychiatric Association, 1994). It remains pos-
sible that an undetected mental illness (e.g., depres-
sion) contributed to the observed pattern of findings.
Finally, several aspects of the paradigm were novel.
Although Ekman and Friesen’s (1975) slides of facial
affect have been widely used, the specific display du-
rations and stimulus sequences used in this study were
not previously tested. Only further research can ex-
amine the replicability of emotional-processing defi-
cits in psychopaths with further tests of this paradigm
and with other sensitive measures of nonverbal emo-
tional processing.
Nevertheless, in demonstrating that psychopathic
offenders do exhibit deficits in nonverbal emotional
processing and that these deficits do not appear to be
global and pervasive, the current study adds to our
understanding of emotional processes that are defi-
cient in psychopaths. Further, the current study sug-
gests that psychopaths are particularly deficient in
classifying facial disgust and in classifying emotion
under conditions that promote reliance on right-
 PSYCHOPATHY AND EMOTIONAL PROCESSING
hemisphere resources and may even be superior in
decoding facial anger under some conditions. These
results can help to explain some inconsistencies in
earlier studies of nonverbal affective processing. For
example, given greater time to integrate processing
across both hemispheres, psychopaths may perform as
well as nonpsychopaths on facial affect recognition.
Similarly, when collapsing across several emotions,
psychopaths’ difficulty in classifying some emotions
may be offset by their adequate ability to classify
other emotions. In this way, current findings suggest
some specific directions for further study of the
mechanisms underlying psychopathy.
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Received September 10, 2001
Revision received May 15, 2002
Accepted July 6, 2002 ■