Spaulding 1 Examining Executive Function and Empathetic Processing in Disinhibited Populations Using the Social Simon Task

There are many forms of disinhibitory psychopathology, two of which are psychopathy and externalizing disorders. Although there is still much to be discovered about the cognitive deficits that underlie these psychopathologies, recent research indicates that attention and executive function play important roles in leading to antisocial behavior. Specifically, psychopathic individuals have attentional deficits that result in a failure to attend peripheral information and externalizing individuals have deficits in executive function that result in a failure to control antisocial behavior. These distinct cognitive deficits lead to disinhibited behavior in both populations in different ways. Additionally, research suggests that psychopathic and externalizing individuals also differ in how they process and experience empathy. This study conducted the Social Simon task with a disinhibited sample to explore the intersection of mechanisms of disinhibition and empathetic processing. Consistent with previous literature and our hypotheses, this study found that 1psychopathic individuals fail to spontaneously take on another’s perspective, but psychopathic individuals who engage in perspective-taking do, and 2externalizing individuals do spontaneously take on another’s perspective and externalizing individuals who engage in perspective-taking are even further affected by another’s presence. Moreover, these results support previous findings that the Social Simon task does measure empathetic processing, specifically perspective-taking.