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Attention Network Performance and Psychopathic Symptoms in Early Adolescence: An ERP Study

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Abstract

Reaction time (RT) and event-related potential (ERP) measures were used to examine the relationships between psychopathic symptoms and three major attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive attention) among a community sample of youth. Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD; Frick and Hare 2001) total and subscale scores were negatively correlated with ERP measures of attentional alerting, indicating that youth with psychopathic symptoms had difficulty using warning cues to prepare for upcoming targets. APSD total scores were not related to performance on measures of orienting or executive attention, although weaker executive attention was found among youth with higher scores on the Impulsivity subscale. These findings support attention-based models of psychopathy and provide evidence of specific deficits in attentional alerting among youth with psychopathic traits. Deficiencies in attentional alerting may be related to noradrenergic functioning and may have cascading effects on higher order cognitive and affective processing.

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Notes

  1. At the suggestion of an anonymous reviewer, we also conducted multiple regression analyses with simultaneous entry of the three APSD subscales in order to examine regression coefficients for the unique variance of each APSD subscale with each of the ANT measures (RT and ERP measures of AL, OR, and FL). Results were consistent with the bivariate correlations reported above.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported by National Institutes of Health grants MH82127 to KHR and MH20012 and DA018760 to TJD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Child and Family Center, University of Oregon, 195 W. 12th Ave., Eugene, OR, 97401, USA

    Kristina Hiatt Racer & Thomas J. Dishion

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    Phan Luu, Yalchin Abdullaev & Thomas J. Dishion

  3. Electrical Geodesics Inc., Eugene, OR, USA

    Tara Torassa Gilbert & Phan Luu

  4. Department of School Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    Joshua Felver-Gant & Thomas J. Dishion

  5. Pioneer Pacific College, Nursing Program, Springfield, OR, USA

    Yalchin Abdullaev

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  1. Kristina Hiatt Racer
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Racer, K.H., Gilbert, T.T., Luu, P. et al. Attention Network Performance and Psychopathic Symptoms in Early Adolescence: An ERP Study. J Abnorm Child Psychol 39, 1001–1012 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-011-9522-6

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