Do Children with High Callous-Unemotional Traits Have Attentional Deficits to Emotional Stimuli? Evidence from a Multi-Method and Multi-Informant Study

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children and adolescents are linked to severe and persistent antisocial behavior. Based on past empirical research, several theoretical models have suggested that CU traits may be partly explained by difficulties in correctly identifying others' emotional states as well as their reduced attention to others' eyes, which could be important for both causal theory and treatment. This study tested the relationships among CU traits, emotion recognition of facial expressions and visual behavior in a sample of 52 boys referred to a clinic for conduct problems (Mage = 10.29 years; SD = 2.06). We conducted a multi-method and multi-informant assessment of CU traits through the Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI), the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional (ICU), and the Clinical Assessment of Prosocial Emotions-Version 1.1 (CAPE). The primary goal of the study was to compare the utility of these methods for forming subgroups of youth that differ in their emotional processing abilities. An emotion recognition task assessed recognition accuracy (percentage of mistakes) and absolute dwell time on the eyes or mouth region for each emotion. Results from repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that low and high CU groups did not differ in emotion recognition accuracy, irrespective of the method of assessing CU traits. However, the high CU group showed reduced attention to the eyes of fearful and sad facial expressions (using the CPTI) or to all emotions (using the CAPE). The high CU group also showed a general increase in attention to the mouth area, but only when assessed by the CAPE. These findings provide evidence to support abnormalities in how those elevated on CU traits process emotional stimuli, especially when assessed by a clinical interview, which could guide appropriate assessment and more successful interventions for this group of youth.