Enhanced P3 Evoked Potentials and Longer P3 Recovery Times in Psychopaths

A recent study by Raine and Venables (1987) reported increased P3 amplitudes in antisocial adolescents, a replicable result indicating enhanced processing of task‐relevant events. The present study assesses whether adult psychopaths similarly show enhanced P3 amplitudes; latency of P3 recovery to baseline was also measured to assess Jutai et al.'s (1987) finding of sustained late positivity in psychopaths. EPs were measured at T 3 , T 4 , P 3 , and P 4 to targets and nontargets during a continuous performance task in 14 psychopathic and 14 nonpsychopathic top‐security prisoners. Psychopaths showed larger P3 amplitudes to targets relative to nontargets at parietal but not temporal sites, and larger P3 recovery times. Psychopaths also scored higher on WAIS subtests sensitive to parietal lobe functioning but not on non‐parietal subtests. No laterality effects were uncovered to support a left hemisphere dysfunction theory of psychopathy. It is argued that this evidence for proficient information‐processing on parietal‐related tasks may underlie clinical reports of enhanced short‐term attentional ability in psychopaths.