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Biomedical subjects

C J Patrick

Publications and source records attributed to C J Patrick.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Psychopathy, antisocial personality, and suicide risk.

H. Cleckley (1976) maintained that psychopaths are relatively immune to suicide, but substantial evidence exists for a relationship between antisocial deviance and suicidal acts. This study was the first to explicitly examine suicidal history among psychopathic individuals as defined by R. D. Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist--Revised (PCL-R). Male prison inmates (N = 313) were assessed using the PCL-R and DSM-III-R and DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, 1994) for antisocial personality disorder (APD), and they completed A. Tellegen's (1982) Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Presence or absence of prior suicide attempts was coded from structured interview and prison file records. Suicide history was significantly related to PCL-R Factor 2 (which reflects chronic antisocial deviance) and to APD diagnosis but was unrelated to PCL-R Factor 1, which encompasses affective and interpersonal features of psychopathy. Higher order MPQ dimensions of Negative Emotionality and low Constraint were found to account for the relationship between history of suicidal attempts and antisocial deviance, indicating that temperament traits may represent a common vulnerability for both.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Alcohol affects emotion through cognition.

Determining how, cognition and emotion interact is pivotal to an understanding of human behavior and its disorders. Available data suggest that changes in emotional reactivity and behavior associated with drinking are intertwined with alcohol's effects on cognitive processing. In the study reported here, we demonstrated that alcohol dampens anticipatory fear and response inhibition in human participants not by directly suppressing subcortical emotion centers, as posited by traditional tension-reduction theories, but instead by impairing cognitive-processing capacity. During intoxication, reductions in fear response (assessed via startle potentiation) occurred only under dual-stimulus conditions, and coincided with reduced attentional processing of threat cues as evidenced by brain response (assessed via P3 event-related potentials). The results are consistent with higher cortical mediation of alcohol 's effects on fear, and illustrate more broadly how disruption of a cognitive process can lead to alterations in emotional reactivity and adaptive behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

The psychopath as observer: emotion and attention in picture processing.

This study extended prior work showing abnormal affect-startle modulation in psychopaths. Male prisoners viewed specific categories of pleasant (erotic or thrilling) and unpleasant (victim or direct threat) slide pictures, along with neutral pictures. Acoustic startle probes were presented early (300 and 800 ms) and late (1,800, 3,000, and 4,500 ms) in the viewing interval. At later times, nonpsychopaths showed moderate and strong reflex potentiation for victim and threat scenes, respectively. For psychopaths, startle was inhibited during victim scenes and only weakly potentiated during threat. Psychopaths also showed more reliable blink inhibition across pleasant contents than nonpsychopaths and greater heart rate orienting to affective pictures overall. These results indicate a heightened aversion threshold in psychopaths. In addition, deficient reflex modulation at early times suggested a weakness in initial stimulus evaluation among psychopaths.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

A startle-probe methodology for investigating the effects of active avoidance on negative emotional reactivity.

This study introduces a new methodology for investigating the impact of active avoidance and behavioral control on defensive emotional reactivity using the startle reflex. A between-groups yoked design was devised that permitted manipulation of participants' perception of control over an aversive event (loud noise) while precisely controlling motor activity and noxious stimulation. Startle responses to tactile (airpuff) probes were compared during threat/performance trials and neutral trials. Results conclusively demonstrated cross-modal startle potentiation in the context of a continuous motor performance task. Also, consistent with prior research, heart rate increased with perceived control. However, behavioral control per se did not appear to mitigate defensive emotion as indexed by startle potentiation. These findings indicate that other parameters may mediate the efficacy of active coping in addition to control, and that the startle probe paradigm can provide a valuable tool for investigating these parameters in future research.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Alcohol and fear-potentiated startle: the role of competing cognitive demands in the stress-reducing effects of intoxication.

Effects of alcohol and cognitive demands on reactions to threat were examined using startle response potentiation to index negative emotion. Men and women received nonalcoholic or alcoholic beverages prior to a series of trial blocks, signaled by light cues indicating that shocks might be delivered ("threat" blocks) or that none would occur ("safe" blocks). Within half of the blocks, participants intermittently viewed pleasant photographic slides. Alcohol attenuated overall startle reactivity, but robust fear potentiation (larger startle magnitudes and shorter latencies during threat versus safe blocks) did not differ by beverage condition. Decomposition of the Beverage x Threat x Slide interaction revealed significant fear potentiation in all conditions, except the one in which alcohol was combined with slides. Thus, dampening of stress response by alcohol may depend on diminished ability to process competing cognitive demands.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1996

Diazepam blocks fear-potentiated startle in humans.

The effects of an anxiolytic drug (diazepam) on emotional responses to aversive stimuli were investigated using physiological measures, including the startle probe reflex. Participants were 54 university students assigned to either a placebo group or a 10 mg or 15 mg diazepam group in a double-blind design. Blink responses to intermittent noise probes were recorded during viewing of neutral and unpleasant slides. Consistent with prior animal work, diazepam blocked startle potentiation during aversive stimulus processing without decreasing the overall magnitude of startle responses. These findings suggest that a common defensive state mediates startle reflex potentiation in animals and humans and that this index of fear can be used to assess the emotional effects of different drugs.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Beyond stress and arousal: a reconceptualization of alcohol-emotion relations with reference to psychophysiological methods.

In this review, the authors examine how psychophysiological research might better contribute to understanding the effects of alcohol on human emotion. They propose that future studies would benefit from greater use of contemporary theories of emotion that emphasize a dimensional structure of affective expression, incorporating the parameters of emotional arousal and emotional valence. Evidence suggests that, although alcohol exerts an overall dampening effect on arousal, it appears to modulate emotional response through its effects on higher order associative processes rather than at the level of primary brain motivational systems. They discuss methodological implications of this multidimensional, multilevel approach and suggest that alcohol-induced physiological changes need to be investigated as dynamic response patterns rather than isolated events tied to solitary measures.

Affect↗
PubMed1995

Alcohol and human emotion: a multidimensional analysis incorporating startle-probe methodology.

The effect of alcohol intoxication on emotional response was investigated using a model of emotion that includes both arousal and valence dimensions. Thirty-six university students were exposed to multiple presentations of photographic slides selected to elicit distinctive emotional reactions ranging from very pleasant to very unpleasant; half of them received a moderate (approximately .75 ml/kg) dose of ethanol. The students' psychophysiological responses indicated that both general startle reactivity and autonomic indices specific to emotional arousal were diminished by alcohol. However, the affective modulation of startle, occurring with emotional states manipulated by slides with distinct valences, remained intact. These findings suggest that "stress-response dampening" by alcohol may involve a nonspecific attenuation of arousal reactions evident for positive as well as negative stimuli and that theories of motivation for drinking that are based on mood alteration may need refinement.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed1995

Startle potentiation during anticipation of a noxious stimulus: active versus passive response sets.

The startle reflex response increases during aversive stimulus processing. This study examined whether differing response sets affected startle potentiation during anticipation of an aversive event. Two groups received a noxious noise blast following a 6-s warning cue. Subjects in the active group could press a switch to stop the noise; yoked passive subjects received the same noises with no control. Subjects in a yoked control group heard a soft tone following cue offset. Acoustic startle probes were presented during some of the warning periods and during some of the intertrial intervals. The major finding was that the active and passive groups did not differ in startle potentiation. In comparison with controls, startle reactions for both groups were larger and faster during the warning cue than between trials. The results suggest that the startle reflex indexes defensive response mobilization independently of specific task demands.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1994

Emotion in the criminal psychopath: fear image processing.

We tested the hypothesis that the response mobilization that normally accompanies imagery of emotional situations is deficient in psychopaths. Cardiac, electrodermal, and facial muscle responses of 54 prisoners, assigned to low- and high-psychopathy groups using R. D. Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist--Revised, were recorded while subjects imagined fearful and neutral scenes in a cued sentence-processing task. Groups did not differ on self-ratings of fearfulness, imagery ability, or imagery experience. Low-psychopathy subjects showed larger physiological reactions during fearful imagery than high-psychopathy subjects. Extreme scores on the antisocial behavior factor of psychopathy predicted imagery response deficits. Results are consistent with the idea that semantic and emotional processes are dissociated in psychopaths.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1994

Alcohol and the physiological detection of deception: arousal and memory influences.

Eighty male volunteers participated in an analogue study of the effects of alcohol intoxication at the time of a crime on the physiological detection of deception using control question and guilty knowledge techniques. Sixty-four of the subjects committed a mock crime and half of these were intoxicated during the crime. Sixteen subjects committed no crime and served as innocent controls. We found that intoxication at the time of the crime had no significant effect on polygraph test outcomes, although it did affect anticipatory arousal before the crime and subsequent memory for crime details. Manipulations designed to influence memory for crime details and arousal during the crime had differential effects for the two polygraph tests. On the guilty knowledge test, primed subjects who rehearsed specific details following the crime were more detectable than unprimed subjects. On the control question test, primed subjects were also more detectable, but only when arousal during the crime was high.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Emotion and psychopathy: startling new insights.

Abnormal affective response in psychopaths is conceptualized within a broad theory of emotion that emphasizes reciprocal appetitive and defensive motivational systems. The startle response is proposed as a specific measure of the directional component of emotional activation. I review the literature that indicates that criminal psychopaths do not show the expected potentiation of the startle reflex that normally occurs during processing of aversive stimuli such as unpleasant photographs or punishment cues. Evidence is presented to demonstrate that this deviant response pattern is specific to individuals who display the classic affective symptoms of psychopathy. The core emotional deviation in psychopathy could be a deficit in fear response, which is defined as a failure of aversive cues to prime normal defensive actions. This emotional deficit may represent an extreme variant of normal temperament.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Emotion in the criminal psychopath: startle reflex modulation.

Startle-elicited blinks were measured during presentation of affective slides to test hypotheses concerning emotional responding in psychopaths. Subjects were 54 incarcerated sexual offenders divided into nonpsychopathic, psychopathic, and mixed groups based on file and interview data. Consistent with findings for normal college students, nonpsychopaths and mixed subjects showed a significant linear relationship between slide valence and startle magnitude, with startle responses largest during unpleasant slides and smallest during pleasant slides. This effect was absent in psychopaths. Group differences in startle modulation were related to affective features of psychopathy, but not to antisocial behavior per se. Psychopathy had no effect on autonomic or self-report responses to slides. These results suggest an abnormality in the processing of emotional stimuli by psychopaths that manifests itself independently of affective report.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Use of antianxiety drugs as countermeasures in the detection of guilty knowledge.

To evaluate whether antianxiety drugs enable guilty subjects to appear innocent on polygraph tests, we compared the effects of diazepam, meprobamate, and propranolol on the outcome of a guilty knowledge test (GKT). Seventy-five undergraduate students were evenly divided among one innocent and four guilty groups. Subjects in each of the guilty groups received either one of the drugs or a placebo prior to the administration of the GKT and after viewing a videotape that depicted a burglary as seen from the perspective of the burglar. The results showed that drug status had no influence on the outcome of the GKT. Innocent subjects who coincidentally obtained high scores on a recognition memory test covering details of the mock crime tended to obtain higher guilt scores on the GKT.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

A comparison of field and laboratory polygraphs in the detection of deception.

This study compared the effectiveness of field and laboratory polygraphs in discriminating guilty and innocent subjects tested using the Control Question Technique (CQT). Subjects were 48 prisoners examined regarding a mock theft in a peer threat context; physiological responses were recorded simultaneously on a Lafayette field polygraph and a Sensor Medics laboratory polygraph. Overall hit rates were essentially the same whether classifications were based on quantitative measures from the laboratory polygraph or on numerical scores from the field polygraph (i.e., 73% and 79%, respectively), and in both cases the best discriminating measures were electrodermal activity and indices of respiration suppression. Further analyses revealed that errors of classification were mostly due to the failure of the available measures to differentiate between relevant and control questions for innocent subjects. These results indicate that the CQT is susceptible to false positive errors when subjects are tested under field-like circumstances, a problem that is not likely to be eliminated by refinements in instrumentation and scoring.

Adult↗