1. Effects of Psychopathy on Moral Reasoning: A Behavioural and EEG Study
Glen Carrigan MBPsS

2. Overview Philosophy Classic moral problems Past research
Specific Neuro-imaging research
Damage and trait psychopathy
Current studies

3. Philosophy Kant (1724-1804) Deontology Mill (1806-1873) Utilitarianism
Aquinas (1274) DDE
Who is everyone else?

4. Detailed but vague enough for insight
Classic Problems
Dilemmas – Vignettes
- Trolley Problem (Foot, 1967)
- Violinist (Souder, 2003)
- Violent images / Video (Decety & Cacioppo, 2013)
- Virtual Reality / Neuroimaging
Plausibility
Avoid eccentricity
Detailed but vague enough for insight
Appropriate format

5. Behavioural Research Written Moral Dilemmas - Ratio - Victim
- Difference

6. EEG Research
Intention perception 60ms posterior superior temporal sulcus
The perception of intentional harm was associated with better (90% vs. 71%) and faster reaction times than accidental harm (P 0.05).
Also found in: Grafton 2009; Ortigue et al. 2009
Replicated in fMRI
(Decety & Cacioppo, 2013)

7. fMRI Research Greene et al (2001; 2003; 2004) Brain with Region
Associated moral task
Other associated tasks
Social Pathology from damage
Likely function
Medial frontal gyrus (BA/9/10)
Personal, impersonal and simple moral judgments.
Emotional planning, emotional autobio recall, happy/sad recognition.
Poor practical judgment, reactive aggression, diminished empathy & social knowledge.
Integration of emotion into decision making and planning.
Posterior cingulate precuneus, retrospenial cortex (BA 31/7)
Disgusted, sad faces, negative event recognition, sad autobio recall (men) emotional planning.
Impaired recognition for faces, Capgras delusion.
Integration of emotion, imagery, coherent social narratives.
Superior temporal sulcus, inferior parietal lobe (BA 39)
Personal, simple moral judgments.
Biological emotion, emotional film viewing s recall.
Impaired judgment from eye gaze, Capgras delusion.
Supporting representations of social significance
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9/ 10/ 46); Parietal lobe (BA 7/ 40)
Impersonal moral judgments.
Working memory and other cognitive tasks.
Less emotional bias requiring cognitive control.
Modulating emtional and cognitive responses to moral problems
Greene et al (2001; 2003; 2004)

8. Damage & trait psychopathy
Phineas Gage (Prehn & Heekeren, 2009; Gleichgerecht et al 2011; Moretto et al 2010)
Damage to VMPC increases utilitarianism especially in 1 v 5 (Koenigs et al, 2007). Reduced compassion, shame, guilt and empathy.
Healthy participants. > trait psychoticism correlates with need for cognition < empathic concern (Weich, 2012)
Healthy participants. > trait psychoticism associates with diminished early recognition of emotional salience. Reduced emotional modulation of late positive potential (LPP, 400–600 ms) & EAP.

9. Study 1 - Behavioural Online Psychopathy, healthy population
Psychoticism
Branch 1
Dilemmas
Filler
Branch 2
Online
Psychopathy, healthy population
Visual, video, written
Instrumental (intentional) Incidental (accidental)
Answers and reaction time

10. Study 2 - EEG Layout High / Low participants
Written or images, Instrumental / incidental
Answers, ERPs and reaction times
Issues - Online vs laboratory to collect reaction times across studies
- Visual processing for Written vs Image based problems
- Stimuli and ERP analysis anomalies

11. Summary
Caution
High trait psychoticism in healthy participants, like diagnosed psychopathy and damage, may produce diminished empathic concern (emotional recognition and cognitive conflict) in response to moral instrumental and incidental dilemmas.
This may strengthen the association between high psychoticism traits and utilitarianism whilst further elucidating those implicated cognitive process as evidenced by particular ERP components.

12. Questions?

13. References
Aquinas, T. (1952). The summa theologica (fathers of the english dominican province, trans.). In W. Benton (Series Ed.), Great Books Series: Vol. 19. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. (Original work published 1274).
Carolan, L. P., Jaspers-Fayer, F., Asmaro, T. D., Douglas, S. K., & Liotti, M. (2013). Electrophsiology of blunted emotional bias in psychopathic personality. Psychophysiology, 1-6.
Damasio, A. R. (2007). Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral
judgments. Nature, 446, 908–911.
Decety, J., & Cacioppo. (2012) The speed of morality: a high-density electrical neuroimaging study. Journal of Neurophysiology, 108, pp,
Foot. (1967). The problem of abortion and the doctrine of double effect. Oxford Review, 5, 5–15.
Gleichgerrcht E, Torralva T, Roca M, Pose M, Manes F. (2011). The role of social cognition in moral judgment in frontotemporal dementia. Social Neuroscience, 6, 113–122.

14. Greene, J. D. , Nystrom, L. E. , Engell, A. D. , Darley, J. M
Greene, J. D., Nystrom, L. E., Engell, A. D., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2004). The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment, 44, 389–400.
Kant, I. (1959). Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, IN
Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., &
Mill, J.S. (1998). Utilitarianism, R. Crisp, ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Moretto, G., La`davas, E., Mattioli, F. &, di Pellegrino, G. (2010). A psychophysiological investigation of moral judgment after ventromedial prefrontal damage. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 1888–1899.
Souder, L. (2003). What are we to think about thought experiments? Argumentation, 17(2),
Wiech, Kahane, Shackel, Farias, Savulescu & Tracey. (2012). Cold or calculating? Reduced activity in the subgenual cingulated cortex reflects decreased emotional aversion to harming in counterintuitive utilitarian judgment. Cognition, 126, 3,