Reading psychopathy, v.1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Psychopathy-related differences in reading: Evidence from gaze-contingent eye movement paradigms
IRAS ID
273539
Contact name
Simon Chu
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Central Lancashire
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Psychopathy is a clinical syndrome characterized by emotional deficits and antisocial behaviour. The problems seen in psychopathy may be associated with cognitive processing problems, and specifically difficulties in simultaneously processing multiple aspects of visual information. This is the Impaired Integration (II) theory of psychopathy (Hamilton 2015).
Fluent reading requires the simultaneous processing of visual information. During reading, the perceptual system simultaneously processes approximately one word to the left, and three words to the right, of the point that the eye fixates upon. That is, the eye pre-processes words it has yet to focus on and this improves reading fluency. However, this requires the simultaneous processing of multiple words and II theory suggests that readers with psychopathy have difficulties with this. That is, psychopathic readers may have problems in simultaneously processing stimuli that are not the focus of their fixation alongside the fixated word. We will examine whether this holds true.
We will compare control participants with volunteer patients at Ashworth Hospital selected for degree of psychopathy. Participants will read sentences presented on a screen whilst wearing eye-tracking equipment that will track their eye position and fixation point, and also manipulate the words on screen. In one part, the perceptual span (i.e. number of words visible to the right of fixation) will be manipulated to assess whether reading speed is affected when the perceptual span is progressively reduced. II theory predicts that psychopathic readers will be less affected than controls. In a different part of the study, a target word to the right of fixation will be replaced by a variety of word types until it is fixated upon and we predict that metrics of reading fluency are less affected in readers with psychopathy than control participants. Together, the data will assess the fluency of integration of simultaneous visual information in reading.
Lay summary of study results: The study was conducted in a secure forensic mental health hospital with a population that are known to be difficult to engage in research. Ultimately, the study failed to recruit participants in sufficient numbers to make the study viable. Reasons for this were mainly to do with the study area (psychopathy), and the necessary requirements of the study setup (technical equipment, reading tasks, cognitive tasks) which were off-putting to volunteer participants. The study team aimed to recruit 20 participants from the hospital but only 9 consented and only 1 completed the study. The experience proved valuable in terms of learning how to approach research recruitment in this population and what may hinder study viability.
REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/PR/0743
Date of REC Opinion
12 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion