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Recognition of Facial Emotion and Affective Prosody in Children at High Risk of Criminal Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2018

Lisette van Zonneveld ,
Leo de Sonneville ,
Stephanie van Goozen  and
Hanna Swaab
Lisette van Zonneveld*
Affiliation:
Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Leiden University, the Netherlands Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, the Netherlands
Leo de Sonneville
Affiliation:
Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Leiden University, the Netherlands Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, the Netherlands
Stephanie van Goozen
Affiliation:
Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Leiden University, the Netherlands School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
Hanna Swaab
Affiliation:
Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Leiden University, the Netherlands Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, the Netherlands
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to: Lisette van Zonneveld, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, the Netherlands. E-mail: e.m.van.zonneveld@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
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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, 2019, 25, 57–64)

Keywords

CriminalityAntisocial behaviorEmotion recognitionFacial affectAffective prosodyHigh-risk
Type
Regular Research
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 57 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 2018 

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