Emotional and attentional anomalies underlying triarchic psychopathic traits: an EEG-startle blink study

Abstract Background Psychopathic characteristics are associated with an elevated risk for violent behavior and are therefore of interest in research studies. Despite extensive research, the role of emotional and attentional anomalies in subclinical psychopathic traits remains a subject of ongoing debate, possibly attributed to the multifaceted nature of the construct. The study aims to explore how distinct psychopathic traits may differently relate to underlying emotional and attentional mechanisms. Methods To further explore the emotional and attentional anomalies underpinning the three Triarchic Psychopathy constructs, boldness, meanness, and disinhibition, this study employed an optimized picture-startle paradigm to address the limitations in commonly used paradigms that capture these dynamics only after 1000 ms post-image onset. This paradigm included negative, positive, and neutral images to elicit varied emotional responses, while auditory startle probes were presented at 50, 700, or 4500 ms post-image onset to measure emotional and attentional fluctuations. In this study, it was proposed that each psychopathic trait correlates with distinct emotional and attentional anomalies. A mixed-gender community sample of 115 participants was included. Eyeblink startle amplitudes (ESAs) were recorded via smartphone technology that utilizes facial landmark data captured via phone cameras, while the P3a and late positive potential (LPP) were measured through electroencephalography (EEG). Results The results revealed an exaggerated attentional bottleneck associated with boldness in males, indicated by increased P3a amplitudes in response to negative images. Meanness was associated with lower empathy scores and arousal ratings, and reduced ESAs at 4500 ms for negative images, supporting socio-emotional difficulties in meanness. In contrast, disinhibition showed no significant emotional or attentional deviations in this study. Conclusions Our findings highlight trait-specific differences in neurocognitive functioning and validate the effectiveness of the optimized picture-startle paradigm for dissociating attentional versus emotional anomalies across triarchic psychopathic traits. The study also demonstrates the feasibility of using BlinkLab’s integrated stimulus presentation and camera-based eyelid tracking with concurrent EEG measures of attentional and affective processing (P3a and LPP), providing a complementary approach that may facilitate scalable data collection.