P3 Brain Potential Amplitude in Criminal Psychopathy

In contrast with research on community samples, which shows consistent evidence of reduced P3 brain potential amplitude in individuals with externalizing problems including impulsive and aggressive-antisocial tendencies, findings from studies of the association between P3 amplitude and psychopathy in incarcerated samples have been mixed. Psychopathy, as measured by Hare's (2003) Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), includes separable affective-interpersonal and impulsive-antisocial components. Recent research has demonstrated a close and selective link between impulsive-antisocial features of PCL-R psychopathy and externalizing psychopathology and traits. The present study sought to extend upon previous research by assessing differential relations between the separable features of PCL-R psychopathy and P3 event-related potential amplitude in a sample of male prisoners (N = 154). EEG was recorded from 53 scalp sites while participants completed a three-stimulus visual oddball task in which schematic heads served as targets, simple ovals as non-targets, and emotional and neutral pictures as novel stimuli. As predicted, P3 amplitude reductions for target and novel task stimuli were specifically related to impulsive-antisocial features of psychopathy and were unrelated to affective-interpersonal features, and further, reductions were maximal at anterior (fronto-central) scalp recording sites.