Citation

van Zonneveld L, de Sonneville L, Van Goozen S, Swaab H. J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc. 2019; 25(1): 57-64.

Affiliation

1Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences,Leiden University,the Netherlands.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S1355617718000796

PMID

30394247

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Emotion recognition is an important aspect of emotion processing, which is needed for appropriate social behavior and normal socialization. Previous studies in adults with antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy, in those convicted of criminal behavior, or in children with conduct disorder show impairments in negative emotion recognition. The present study investigated affective facial and prosody recognition in a sample of children at high risk of developing future criminal behavior.

METHODS: Participants were 8- to 12-year-old children at high risk of developing criminal behavior (N=219, 83.1% boys) and typically developing controls (N=43, 72.1% boys). The high-risk children were recruited through an ongoing early intervention project of the city of Amsterdam, that focuses on the underage siblings or children of delinquents, and those failing to attend school. Facial and vocal recognition of happy, sad, angry, and fear was measured with the Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) test and the prosody test of the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT), respectively.

RESULTS: The high-risk group was significantly worse in facial affect recognition and had particular problems with fear and sadness recognition. No hostile attribution bias was found. The high-risk group did not differ from controls in affective prosody recognition but needed significantly more time to recognize emotions.

CONCLUSIONS: The emotion-specific deficits found in forensic and clinical populations are already present in a sample of children at high risk of developing future criminal behavior. These findings help us understand a possible underlying mechanism of antisocial behavior that could provide directions for tailored interventions. (JINS, 2018, 00, 1-8).

Language: en

Keywords

Affective prosody; Antisocial behavior; Criminality; Emotion recognition; Facial affect; High-risk