Rita Pasion

• MsD
• Professor at Lusophone University of Humanities and Technologies

The current meta-analysis includes 477 records (N = 142,692) and comprehensively explores the complex interplay between psychopathy, antisocial behavior, and empathy. First, empathy domains (cognitive and affective) were used to dissociate antisocial behavior from psychopathy. Cognitive empathy was more impaired in antisocial groups (gcognitive = −...

The Affect–Integration–Motivation (AIM) framework was proposed to clarify how brain circuits that support decision-making are altered by aging (Samanez-Larkin & Knutson, 2015). According to this framework, choices are preceded by affective, integrative, and motivational processes, which may all be affected by aging. The Monetary Incentive Delay (MI...

Objective: This scoping review aims to map and synthesise the current research evidence targeting the electroencephalography (EEG) neural correlates during pregnancy and its association with parenting-related measures during pregnancy and postpartum period. Introduction: Pregnancy is characterised by a wide range of biological changes associated wi...

The Predictive Processing (PP) framework provides a compelling model for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). In this study, we developed visual and auditory oddball tasks with two levels of target detection difficulty to effectively elicit event-related potential...

Background/objectives: This study examined the association between maternal anger, children's externalizing symptoms, and the moderating impact of maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV). The primary objective was to investigate whether maternal ACEs alter the link between maternal anger and c...

Plain language summary Understanding students’ academic cheating using the fraud diamond theory Purpose: To examine whether the Fraud Diamond theory explains fraudulent academic behavior (e.g., cheating on exams, plagiarizing essays). More specifically, to determine the relationship between the prevalence of academic fraud and students’ perceptions...

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event‐related potential component automatically elicited by events that violate predictions based on prior events. To elicit this component, researchers use stimulus repetition to induce predictions, and the MMN is obtained by subtracting the brain response to rare or unpredicted stimuli from that of frequent stimuli...

Rationale For decades, cannabis has been the most widely used illicit substance in the world, particularly among youth. Research suggests that mental health problems associated with cannabis use may result from its effect on reward brain circuit, emotional processes, and cognition. However, findings are mostly derived from correlational studies and...

Childhood maltreatment is the strongest predictor of psychopathology and personality disorders across the lifespan and is strongly associated with a variety of psychological problems, namely, mood and anxiety disorders, behavioral and personality disorders, substance abuse, aggression, and self-harm. In this study, we aim to provide a comprehensive...

This study links different-modality indicators of RDoC constructs (self-reports, behavior, and error-related brain activity) to explore their association with internalizing and externalizing dimensions of psychopathology. Participants (N = 182; 54% female) completed a questionnaire assessing clinical problems along with self-report scales and EEG t...

Mismatch Negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential component automatically elicited by events that violate predictions based on prior events. To elicit this component, researchers use stimulus repetition to induce predictions, and the MMN is obtained by subtracting the brain response to rare or unpredicted stimuli from that of frequent stimuli...

Certain aspects of social deviance in psychopathy can be explained by deficits in recognizing facial expressions of emotion. Still, important questions remain unanswered regarding this relationship especially because literature still lacks: (a) a dimensional approach to psychopathy integrating the dominant models in the field; (b) multi-level data...

Objectives: Two major complications of monochorionic diamniotic (MCDA) twin pregnancies are twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) and birthweight discordance. The current screening ultrasound test for these pathologies combines the detection of nuchal translucency discrepancy and abnormal ductus venosus in at least one twin, in the first trimes...

The organization of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) model provides unique opportunities to evaluate whether neural risk measures operate as indicators of broader latent liabilities (e.g., externalizing proneness) or narrower expressions (e.g., antisociality and alcohol abuse). Following this approach, the current study recruite...

Background Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects 25% of children under the age of five worldwide, yet the impact of perinatal IPV and its underlying mechanisms on infant development remains poorly understood. IPV indirectly affects infant development through the mother’s parenting behavior, but research on maternal neuro and cognitive processes,...

Risk and uncertainty are central concepts of decision neuroscience. However, a comprehensive review of the literature shows that most studies define risk and uncertainty in an unclear fashion or use both terms interchangeably, which hinders the integration of the existing findings. We suggest uncertainty as an umbrella term that comprises scenarios...

Our capacity to measure diverse aspects of human biology has developed rapidly in the past decades, but the rate at which these techniques have generated insights into the biological correlates of psychopathology has lagged far behind. The slow progress is partly due to the poor sensitivity, specificity and replicability of many findings in the lit...

Background Mother’s childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms have a negative impact on mother and infant’s behaviors during dyadic interactions which may increase mother–infant neurophysiological and behavioral co-regulation difficulties, leading to dysregulated mother–infant interactions. This study was specifically designe...

Aversive conditioning is a category of associative learning in which certain environmental cues predict aversive events. Aversive conditioning is thought to play a significant role in learning social and moral norms, as failure to comply with these norms often results in negative outcomes, such as risk-taking and antisocial behavior. Individuals di...

Background: This systematic review analyzes brain responses at later stages of neuronal processing (P3 at 300-500ms, and LPP at 300-700ms). Both P3 and LPP are implicated in attentional threat bias in disorders grouped into fear and distress dimensions of the anxiety spectrum described by the Hierarchical Taxonomy Model of Psychopathology (HiTOP),...

Our capacity to measure diverse aspects of human biology in vivo has developed rapidly in the past decades, but the rate at which these techniques have generated translatable insights into the biology of psychopathological conditions has lagged far behind. This slow progress is partly due to the poor sensitivity, specificity, and replicability of m...

The current study aims to provide the first insights into the neural correlates of utilitarian and deontological responses to moral dilemmas across the lifespan. To this purpose, younger (n=30), middle-aged (n=29), and older adults (n=29) completed moral dilemmas during an EEG recording. Behaviorally, groups did not differ in the number of utilitar...

Despite being extensively modelled to explore decision making processes in economic tasks, there are no studies exploring the neurophysiological correlates of the Predator-Prey Game, a game theory paradigm designed to operationalize attack and defence conflicts. In the present study, we explored the relationship between the ERP components associate...

This study provides initial insights on the relation between psychopathic traits (disinhibition, meanness, and boldness) and academic fraud (prevalence and severity), while considering important mediators of fraud (perceived capability, opportunity, motivation, and rationalization). Based on a large sample of university students ( N = 967), two str...

The current meta-analysis included 431 records (N= 123,414) to comprehensively explore the complex interaction between psychopathy, antisocial behavior, and empathy. First, empathy domains (cognitive and affective) were used to provide critical insights for distinguishing antisocial behavior from psychopathy. Cognitive empathy was more impaired in...

The containment measures imposed during the first COVID-19 outbreak required economic, social, and behavioral changes to minimize the spread of the coronavirus. Some studies have focused on how personality predicts distinct patterns of adherence to protective measures with psychopathic and antisocial traits predicting reduced engagement in such mea...

Auditory event-related potentials (ERP) may serve as diagnostic tools for schizophrenia and inform on the susceptibility for this condition. Particularly, the examination of N1 and P2 components of the auditory ERP may shed light on the impairments of information processing streams in schizophrenia. However, the habituation properties (i.e., decrea...

Transdiagnostic approaches such as the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) highlight the importance of addressing psychopathological constructs dimensionally, since comorbidity and heterogeneity represent prevalent issues in the available categorical diagnosis. The current study analyses distinct internalizing dimensions of depression and anxiety, and...

Purpose. This study aims to explore whether the COVID-19-related circumstances hindered undergraduate students' academic motivation, engagement, and attachment to the university. Design Methodology Approach. The authors surveyed two groups of undergraduate business students (42% male) who completed the questionnaires at the beginning and at the en...

Academic fraud encompasses a number of different dishonest behaviors, such as cheating on exams, plagiarizing essays or using ghost writers, to name some. Regarding fraudulent academic behavior, little is known on the relationship between students’ perceptions of the severity of such behavior and its prevalence, and whether fraud diamond theory can...

COVID-19 outbreak is a sudden and devastating global pandemic in which the control of the spread is highly dependent on individual reactions, until the development of a vaccine and adequate treatments. Considering that older adults are at high risk for COVID-related medical complications and mortality, the present study focuses on the age-related d...

The psychopathic traits boldness, meanness, and disinhibition are theorized to be underlined by trait fearlessness and externalizing vulnerability as etiologic neurobiological processes. However, little is known about the neurophysiological correlates of these traits. In this work, we explored how the three traits are associated with event-related...

The Triarchic Measure of Psychopathy (TriPM) was developed to assess manifest expressions of biobehavioural liabilities relevant to psychopathy and other forms of mental illness. Psychometric findings have been examined for a number of international translations of the TriPM, but further work is needed to evaluate its cross-cultural applicability a...

Abstract Empirically supported interventions in psychological disorders should provide (1) evidence supporting the underlying psychological mechanisms of psychopathology to target in the intervention and (2) evidence supporting the efficacy of the intervention. However, research has been dedicated in a greater extent to efficacy than to the acquisi...

With respect to De Dreu and Gross's article, we comment on the psychological functions for attack and defense, focusing on associations between individual differences in psychopathic personality traits and the behavioral patterns observed in attack-defense conflicts. We highlight the dimensional nature of psychopathy and formulate hypothetical asso...

The comorbidity between discrete clinical diagnosis occurs in higher levels than prevalence rates, indicating that mental disorders are systematically overcategorized. Dimensional models - as the Internalizing-Externalizing Spectrum - claim for a common latent structure of psychopathology. The current meta-analysis aims to evaluate whether the exte...

The lack of consistent findings in the research field of psychopathy unveils the heterogeneity of this personality structure and, therefore, a dissociation of its phenotypic components is a promising venue to conciliate paradoxical results. The current study aims to assess the dissociable effects of psychopathic traits on N2 and P3 modulation, whil...

Past research on emotions was mostly supported on emotion inducing slides, but studies in the field are moving towards more ecological stimuli, including 3D stimuli and virtual reality scenes. The present study aims to compare the effects of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) emotion-inducing scenes in the modulation of attention, as i...

Despite the accumulated knowledge on antisocial behavior and the positive event-related potential peaking around 300 ms (P3), less is known about the preceding negative electrophysiological response around 200 ms (N2). A systematic search of the literature was conducted to analyze the N2 modulation across the antisocial spectrum. Thirty-seven studi...

Introduction: Aggression can be defined according to impulsive or premeditated features. Impulsivity is defined as an uncontrolled and unplanned form of aggression. On the contrary, premeditation requires planning and is goal-oriented. Objective: The purpose of this study was to validate the basic psychometric properties of the Impulsive/Premedi...

How ERN is modulated by external contingencies remains an open question. In accordance with the RDoC Sustained Threat construct, the current study tests a paradigm that manipulates the degree of external threat, while considering trait differences in anxiety. EEG was recorded from 46 participants during 4 experimental conditions (initial no-threat,...

Objectives: The current review aimed to explore the advances in neuropsychological assessment in light of a recent research framework designed to improve our knowledge on mental health – the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). Methods: RDoC proposals on neuropsychological tests were reviewed across the RDoC cognitive systems domain. The focus is on th...

This study examines age-related differences in behavioral and neural responses to unfairness. Our sample was composed of younger, middle-aged, and older adults, who performed the Ultimatum Game in the proposer role, and in the respondent role during an EEG recording. We administered neurocognitive tests to identify whether patterns in decision-maki...

Aging is associated with changes in cognitive and affective functioning, which likely shape older adults’ social cognition. As the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying age differences in social abilities remain poorly understood, the present study aims to extend the research in this field. To this purpose, younger (n = 30; Mage = 26.6), m...

The relationship between executive functioning and psychopathy lacks consistent findings. The heterogeneity of the psychopathic personality structure may contribute to the mixed data that emerged from clinical-categorical approaches. Considering the link between antisocial behavior and executive dysfunction from the perspective of the Triarchic Mod...

Srull and Wyer (1979) demonstrated that exposing participants to more hostility-related stimuli caused them subsequently to interpret ambiguous behaviors as more hostile. In their Experiment 1, participants descrambled sets of words to form sentences. In one condition, 80% of the descrambled sentences described hostile behaviors, and in another con...

The self-concept maintenance theory holds that many people will cheat in order to maximize self-profit, but only to the extent that they can do so while maintaining a positive self-concept. Mazar, Amir, and Ariely (2008, Experiment 1) gave participants an opportunity and incentive to cheat on a problem-solving task. Prior to that task, participants...

Background Emotion identification is a fundamental component of social cognition. Although it is well established that a general cognitive decline occurs with advancing age, the effects of age on emotion identification is still unclear. A meta-analysis by Ruffman and colleagues (2008) explored this issue, but much research has been published since...

Objective To adapt and validate a widely used set of moral dilemmas to European Portuguese, which can be applied to assess decision-making. Moreover, the classical formulation of the dilemmas was compared with a more focused moral probe. Finally, a shorter version of the moral scenarios was tested. Methods The Portuguese version of the set of mora...

Objective: Aging is known to alter the processing of facial expressions of emotion (FEE), however the impact of this alteration is less clear. Additionally, there is little information about the temporal dynamics of the neural processing of facial affect. Methods: We examined behavioral and neural age-related changes in the identification of FEE...

Despite the accumulated knowledge on moral decision-making in the early stages of development, empirical evidence is still limited in the old-aged adults. The current study contributes to unveil the neural correlates of judgments of moral transgressions as a function of aging, by examining the temporal dynamics of neural activation elicited by inte...

This study examines age-related differences in behavioral responses to risk and in the neurophysiological correlates of feedback processing. Our sample was composed of younger, middle-aged and older adults, who were asked to decide between two risky options, in the gain and loss domains, during an EEG recording. Results evidenced group-related diff...

The valence of outcomes has great influence on risk preference in economic decision-making. In the present study, we examined the effects of the valence of outcomes on the feedback-P3 (fb-P3), an ERP component considered an indicator of motivational significance of rewards. To this end, we used a gambling task in which participants opted between tw...

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most widely used tools to assess economic decision-making. However, the research tradition on aging and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been mainly focused on the overall performance of older adults in relation to younger or clinical groups, remaining unclear whether older adults are capable of learning along...

In 2009, Gao and Raine's meta-analysis analysed P3 modulation over the antisocial spectrum. However, some questions remained open regarding the P3 modulation patterns across impulsive and violent manifestations of antisocial behaviour, phenotypic components of psychopathy, and P3 components. A systematic review of 36 studies was conducted (N = 3514...

Background: The EEG technique has decades of valid applications in clinical and experimental neurophysiology. EEG equipment and data analysis methods have been characterized by remarkable developments, but the skin-to-electrode signal transfer remains a challenge for EEG recording. New method: A novel quasi-dry system - the polymer wick-based el...

The Error-Related Negativity (ERN) is a negative event-related potential component observed after error commission, while the Correct-Related Negativity (CRN) is elicited by correct responses. The literature that assesses CRN and ERN in psychopathy is still limited and findings are mixed. However, a dimensional probabilistic analysis of psychopathy...