No . 3 , Part 2 June 1968 PSYCHOPATHY , AUTONOMIC FUNCTIONING , AND THE ORIENTING RESPONSE

Autonomic activity was continuously recorded while primary psychopaths (P), secondary psychopaths (S), and nonpsychopaths (NP) listened to a series of repetitive tones and solved simple arithmetic problems. During rest, Group P had lower levels of skin conductance and autonomic variability than did Group NP, but the difference in autonomic variability disappeared during the arithmetic period. Group P was generally less autonomically responsive to the tones, particularly when GSR and cardiac responses were expressed in terms of individual differences in the range of autonomic activity possible. While GSR habituated at the same rate for all groups, cardiac deceleration and, to a lesser extent, digital vasoconstriction habituated more slowly for Group P than for Group NP. Moreover, Group P gave a relatively small cardiac deceleratory response to a novel tone presented after the repetitive tones. The results were interpreted in terms of autonomic, cortical, and sensory coupling.