Somatic aphasia: Mismatch of body sensations with autonomic stress reactivity in psychopathy

BackgroundAlthough one of the main characteristics of psychopaths is a deficit in emotion, it is unknown whether they show a fundamental impairment in appropriately recognizing their own body sensations during an emotion-inducing task.MethodSkin conductance and heart rate were recorded in 138 males during a social stressor together with subjective reports of body sensations. Psychopathic traits were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) 2nd edition (Hare, 2003).ResultsNonpsychopathic controls who reported higher body sensations showed higher heart rate reactivity, but this verbal-autonomic consistency was not found in psychopathic individuals. This mind–body disconnection is particularly associated with the interpersonal-affective factor of psychopathy.ConclusionsFindings are the first to document this body sensation–autonomic mismatch in psychopaths, and suggest that somatic aphasia – the inaccurate identification and recognition of one's own somatic states – may partly underlie the interpersonal-affective features of psychopathy.