Coherence in the narratives of psychopathic and nonpsychopathic criminal o}enders

Previous research has demonstrated that the speech of psychopaths is more disorganized than that of nonpsychopaths ðWilliamson\ S[ E[ "0880#[ Cohesion and coherence in the speech of psychopathic criminals[ Unpublished doctoral dissertation\ University of British ColombiaŁ[ This paper attempts to explain Wil! liamson|s _ndings and examines the speci_c hypotheses that "a# psychopaths are poor at resolving action in spoken narratives and "b# psychopaths| narratives can be improved by giving them tangible story guides[ Prison inmates were asked to produce stories based on the content of two Thematic Apperception Test "TAT# cards\ using speci_ed story ideas[ These narratives were coded using coherence:plot unit analysis[ For Caucasians\ psychopaths resolved fewer plot units than controls\ but they were hindered by the story guides[ For AfricanÐAmericans\ there were no signi_cant group di}erences in the number of plot units resolved[ Psychopaths do seem to have more poorly organized speech\ but this e}ect appears to be limited to Caucasians[ Þ 0888 Elsevier Science Ltd[ All rights reserved[ 0[ Coherence in the narratives of psychopathic and nonpsychopathic criminal inmates Cleckley "0865# has characterized psychopaths as egocentric\ deceitful\ callous and impulsive individuals with lifelong di.culties relating to others[ Although psychopaths often appear as competent and charming individuals\ they typically engage in persistent antisocial acts "including substance abuse and criminal activity# which are harmful to both themselves and others "Hare\ McPhereson\ + Forth\ 0877^ Hart + Hare\ 0878^ Smith + Newman\ 0889#[ This behavior is puzzling because psychopaths tend to have no outward signs of mental illness such as delusions\ hallucinations or depression "Hart + Hare\ 0878#[ One interesting\ and often overlooked\ characteristic of the psychopath is their {glib and super! _cial charm| "Hare\ 0880#[ Due primarily to their almost legendary ability to persuade and manipulate others\ psychopaths are traditionally thought of as being ~uent and skilled con! Corresponding author[ E!mail] brinkleyÝmacc[wisc[edu Chad A[ Brinkley et al[ : Personality and Individual Differences 16 "0888# 408Ð429 419 versationalists "Cleckley\ 0865#[ Clinical observers\ however\ have cited instances in which psycho! paths confuse their audience by using unnecessary retractions and clumsy constructions such as double negatives "Eichler\ 0854#[ Although some might characterize this speech pattern as an intentional attempt by psychopaths to make their audience more susceptible to persuasion\ such an explanation can not account for psychopaths| unusual speech and language perception in situations which do not involve persuasion or deception "Brinkley\ Newman\ Harpur\ + Johnson\ in press#[ An alternative to this motivational hypothesis is that psychopaths may have a subtle form of thought disorder or cognitive de_cit that impairs their information and language processing "Gillstrom + Hare\ 0877^ Williamson\ 0880#[ Studies of language perception provide some evidence for possible processing anomalies in psychopaths[ Hare + McPhereson "0873# have reported that\ unlike controls\ psychopaths do not show a right ear advantage for language stimuli on a dichotic listening task[ Similarly\ Hare + Jutai "0877# have demonstrated that psychopaths do not show the same right visual _eld advantage for processing abstract English words that nonpsychopaths do[ These results suggest that the language processing resources of psychopaths may be distributed di}erently than those of non! psychopaths[ Other research has demonstrated that psychopaths| language processing is not facilitated by semantic cues[ Williamson\ Harpur + Hare "0880# have reported that\ unlike controls\ psychopaths do not show enhanced reaction times or increased event!related potentials when responding to emotional words in a lexical decision task[ Williamson\ Harpur + Hare "0889# also found that\ when asked to categorize words\ psychopaths were signi_cantly less likely than controls to do so using their emotional content as a guiding strategy[ These results suggest that psychopaths may not make use of subtle cues that would be useful in the processing of linguistic stimuli[ The cited studies provide evidence that psychopaths perceive language di}erently than do controls[ The original clinical observations\ however\ were of psychopathic language production[ To date\ there has been little research on the speech produced by psychopaths[ Based on the reports of Eichler "0854# and Gillstrom + Hare "0877#\ Williamson "0880# predicted that narratives produced by psychopaths would be more poorly organized than that of nonpsychopaths[ She also proposed that this relative level of disorganization could be measured using a technique called coherence analysis[ According to Propp "0857#\ narratives are considered coherent to the extent that previously established expectations for later plot developments are resolved within the context of a story[ Coherence can be evaluated systematically using a technique called plot unit analysis "Botvin + Sutton!Smith\ 0866#[ This technique considers narratives to be a series of plot dyads consisting of actions and resolutions[ Coherence is determined by comparing the number of action dyads a narrator begins to the number of action dyads he or she resolves[ Consider for example the following two story elements] 0[ Marcus\ the school bully\ hit Jack on the playground[ 1[ Jack\ unhurt by the blow\ turned around and knocked Marcus unconscious[ The _rst plot dyad sets up expectations in the reader who will want to know what happened to Jack[ The second unit provides closure for the plot in question[ The story becomes coherent Chad A[ Brinkley et al[ : Personality and Individual Differences 16 "0888# 408Ð429 410 because there is a logical course of action and it becomes clear that the two clauses are part of the same text[ If the second plot dyad were not provided\ then the audience might become confused because they never _nd out what happened to Jack and Marcus[ When a participant fails to provide a resolution to an action proposition\ an incomplete plot dyad is formed and the narrative becomes more di.cult for a listener to follow[ In the Williamson "0880# study\ male prison inmates were asked to tell two stories] one about a time when they were afraid and another about a time when they had di.culty doing something[ Her prediction was that psychopaths would close fewer plot dyads than nonpsycho! paths\ particularly in the emotional condition[ This prediction was based on the hypothesis of Williamson "0880# that psychopathic language di.culties may be related to a more general di.culty in processing emotional stimuli "Patrick\ 0883^ Hare\ 0885#[ What she found was that psychopaths closed fewer plot dyads than controls in both the emotional and neutral conditions[ Although this does provide support for the hypothesis that psychopathic speech is disturbed\ it also implies that something more than emotional processing di.culties contributed to the observed e}ect[ Thus it might be useful to consider an alternative hypothesis as to why psychopaths display language de_ciencies[ Newman "0887# has proposed that psychopaths\ while engaged in goal!directed activity\ are less likely to make use of contextual cues which might otherwise enhance their performance[ Communication can be thought of as a goal directed activity in which one attempts to convey information "Brown + Yule\ 0872#[ Contextual cues\ in this case\ could be feedback from the intended audience\ past experiences informing the individual|s present communication strategy or current information from the environment which provides clues about how to structure one|s communication[ When psychopaths are attempting to persuade or inform someone\ they may have di.culties modulating their attention between the content of their message and other aspects of the interchange which might be important to communicating e}ectively[ Thus psychopaths may come across as con_dent "missing cues that the audience is skeptical#\ rude "missing environmental politeness cues# and:or confusing "by focusing on the content of a message at the expense of its form#[ If psychopaths do have di.culties processing contextual cues while engaged in goal directed behavior\ we might expect that we can reduce any observed linguistic de_ciencies by reducing the psychopaths| need to modulate their attention between the content and the form of their message[ One way to accomplish this might be by providing a tangible guide to either the communication|s content or its form[ Given this aid\ the psychopaths would not have to hold both elements of the message in their minds and switch their attention from one to the other[ In the present study\ participants were asked to tell two stories about the contents of two pictures[ In addition\ they were given the goal directed task of including seven di}erent story elements in each of their narratives[ For one story\ participants had to memorize the list of story ideas[ For the other\ they were able to use a printed list of the story ideas as a reference[ Based on the response modulation theory and the existing research on psychopaths| language processing\ it was hypothesized that] "0# psychopaths would focus on the content of their narratives "the seven story elements# to the exclusion of their form resulting in less coherent stories than those produced by controls^ "1# observed de_cits would improve when participants were provided with a tangible guide to story content and "2# the improvement shown by psychopaths should be greater than that demonstrated by controls[ Chad A[ Brinkley et al[ : Personality and Individual Differences 16 "0888# 408Ð429 411