COHESION AND COHERENCE

IN THE SPEECH OF PSYCHOPATHIC CRIMINALS

by

SHERRIE ELLEN WILLIAMSON

B.Sc.(Hon)., University of V i c t o r i a , 1982 M.A., University of B r i t i s h Columbia, 1986

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Psychology)

We accept t h i s thesis as conforming to the required standard.

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

September 1991

(c) Sherrie Williamson, 1991

In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced

degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it

freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive

copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my

department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or

publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written

permission.

Department

The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada

Date

DE-6 (2/88)

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Abstract

This study was designed to examine the hypothesis that the

speech of criminal psychopaths i s poorly integrated. Measures

of cohesion ( l e x i c a l , r e f e r e n t i a l , conjunctive) and coherence

(plot-units) were used to assess the degree to which

independent clauses were linked together i n the personal

narratives of criminal psychopaths and criminal nonpsychopaths.

General deviance in communication, as measured by the Scale for

Thought, Language, and Communication Disorders (Andreasen,

1980), was also assessed. A s i g n i f i c a n t number of psychopaths

produced disordered communications. These communications f a i l e d

on a number of l e v e l s : Psychopaths used r e l a t i v e l y few cohesive

li n k s between sentences, f a i l e d to provide appropriate

referents i n discourse, f a i l e d to l i n k action and r e s o l u t i o n i n

s t o r i e s , and showed s i g n i f i c a n t c l i n i c a l impairment i n t h e i r

a b i l i t y to communicate. The r e s u l t s suggest that e f f e c t i v e

connections among speech units i n psychopaths' discourse are

not as numerous as those found i n nonpsychopaths. In addition,

psychopaths may suffer from a more general impairment i n

communication that i s related to, among other things, discourse

which has a tendancy to s l i p off track and a f a i l u r e to

d i r e c t l y answer a li s t e n e r ' s questions.

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Table of Contents

Abstract i i

Table of Contents i i i

L i s t of Tables v

Acknowledgements v i

Introduction 1

Psychopathy 8

The Assessment of Psychopathy 8

Psychopathy's Relationship to other Constucts 9

Psychopathy and Language 10

Psychopathy and Affective Processing 16

Language and Aff e c t in Psychopaths 17

Thought Disorder 20

Cohesion: Meaning and Measurement 23

The Register of the Narratives 31

Reference Patterns 33

Coherence: Meaning and Measurement 36

Plot-unit Analysis 36

Experimental Hypotheses 40

Method 40

Subjects 40

Procedure 42

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Speech Samples 42

SADS-L 44

Cohesion and Reference Ratings 46

Plot-unit Ratings 47

Thought Disorder Ratings 48

Results 52

Thought Disorder 52

Af f e c t Manipulation Check 56

Discourse Variables 57

Cohesion 62

Incompetent References 67

Coherence 68

Discussion 68

References 84

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L i s t of Tables

Table I. Categories of Cohesion 25

Table I I . Plot-units and Their Def i n i t i o n s 49

Table I I I . Summary of Information for Thought Disorder

(TD) Categories 54

Table IV. Means and Standard Deviations of the

Discourse Variables for the A f f e c t i v e

and Neutral Stories 59

Table V. Correlations of the Dependent Variables

with Total Words, Clauses and MLU for the

A f f e c t i v e and Neutral Stories 60

Table VI. Correlations of the PCL-R with the

Dependent Variables for the Neutral

and Affective Stories 63

Table VII. Means and Standard Deviations of the Dependent

Variables for the Affective and Neutral

Stories for Psychopaths and Non-psychopaths ... 65

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Aknowledgements

I would l i k e to express my thanks to the many people who helped me to complete t h i s research. F i r s t , I would l i k e to thank my research supervisor, Robert D. Hare, who has always been generous with h i s support and help. His ideas have formed the basis f o r much of the research I have been involved i n during my graduate career.

Second, I would l i k e to thank my other two committee members, Judith Johnston, who offered invaluable suggestions during the i n i t i a l stages of t h i s project and who helped me learn about the subject of discourse, and D i m i t r i Papageorgis, who f i r s t taught me about psychopatholgy and whose h e l p f u l c r i t i s i s m s led to the f i n a l form of t h i s t h e s i s .

To the r e l i a b i l i t y coders, Theresa Newlove, V a l e r i e Patterson, and Katie Strachan, my sincerest thanks for a l l the work and time you have put into t h i s project. I would also l i k e to thank Mike Laycock and Sherrie Green who c a r r i e d out the psychopathy assessments.

I would also l i k e Adelle Forth to know how much I appreciated her help in organizing and arranging the l o g i s t i c s of not only t h i s study, but almost a l l of the other research I have been involved i n .

Most importantly, I thank Tim.

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Introduction

The concept of psychopathy has a long and r e l a t i v e l y

controversial history. The d e f i n i t i o n and conceptualization of

the construct have undergone a number of changes over the l a s t

two hundred years (see Pichot, 1978 for a review). I n i t i a l l y ,

both personality and behavioural variables were included i n the

description of psychopathy; however recent d e f i n i t i o n s have

often focused on i t s behavioural manifestations. Common to most

c l i n i c a l descriptions are the following c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s : a lack

of empathy, a f a i l u r e to form enduring r e l a t i o n s h i p s with

others (lovelessness), shallow affect, a lack of remorse or

g u i l t , a f a i l u r e to learn from experience, a lack of anxiety,

and persistent a n t i s o c i a l behaviour that usually begins i n

childhood (Cleckley, 1976; Craft, 1965; Grant, 1977; Hare,

1970; McCord & McCord, 1956).

Recent investigations involving psychopathic subjects have

moved away from the realm of c l i n i c a l d e s c r i p t i o n to empirical

studies of the cognitive and behavioural processes that are

thought to underlie the psychopathic personality. Most relevant

to the present research are investigations of language

processing. This work suggests that there are differences

between psychopaths and nonpsychopaths i n the way they perceive

and process language (Hare & McPherson, 1984; Hare & J u t a i ,

1988; Hare, Williamson, & Harpur, 1988; Williamson, Harpur, &

Hare, 1990; 1991) and i n the organization of t h e i r speech (Hare

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& Gillstrom, 1991/ Gillstrom & Hare, 1988). I t has been

proposed that these processing and production differences may

be p a r t i c u l a r l y apparent for language s t i m u l i requiring deep

semantic analysis or conveying a f f e c t i v e information (Hare &

Gillstrom, 1991; Hare & J u t a i , 1988; Hare et a l . , 1988;

Williamson et. a l , 1991, 1990).

Speculation concerning these language abnormalities has

led to the suggestion that the thoughts and concepts underlying

psychopaths' speech may be poorly integrated or not well

connected to each other (Gillstrom & Hare, 1988; Hare &

Gillstrom, 1991) . One way of investigating t h i s hypothesized

d e f i c i t i s through the analysis of cohesion and coherence. The

present investigation examined narrative speech i n psychopaths

through measures of text cohesion and coherence. These measures

have been used to examine other c l i n i c a l groups that ex h i b i t

communication d e f i c i t s or disorders of thought (e.g. Harvey,

1983; Rochester and Martin, 1979; Rochester, Martin, &

Thurston, 1977).

Measures of cohesion (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) assess the

degree to which words and phrases i n a sentence form

relationships with other words and phrases i n the sentence or

i n other sentences to create a text. In the present study four

measures of text cohesion were obtained. The f i r s t , l e x i c a l

cohesion, ref e r s to the r e i t e r a t i o n of a word or phrase (e.g. I

saw a dog - Then the dog saw me; a word or phrase i s repeated

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i n some form). The second, r e f e r e n t i a l cohesion, r e f l e c t s the

rela t i o n s h i p between a word and a previous speech unit because

i t i s a pronoun, a demonstrative, or a comparative term (e.g. I

saw a dog - Then the dog saw me; the i s a demonstrative

r e f e r r i n g back to a dog). The t h i r d , conjunctive cohesion,

lin k s two clauses together by conjunctions (e.g. I saw a dog -

Then the dog saw me; then forms a temporal conjunction). The

fourth cohesion variable measured i n the present study was

incompetent references. This variable a c t u a l l y r e f l e c t s a

f a i l u r e i n the use of r e f e r e n t i a l cohesive t i e s and also

measures a f a i l u r e i n the use of the r e f e r e n t i a l " p h o r i c i t y "

system.

P h o r i c i t y systems refer to the structuring of utterances

on the basis of what speakers assume t h e i r l i s t e n e r s know. They

involve speech units that reguire previously presented

information for t h e i r interpretation. For instance, consider

the two independent clauses and the r e f e r e n t i a l cohesion that

exists between them; 1. Jack went up the h i l l , 2. He f e l l down.

It i s cle a r that he refers to Jack and that the speaker i s safe

in assuming that the l i s t e n e r w i l l know that t h i s i s the case.

However, sometimes speakers f a i l to provide adeguate p r i o r

information for the l i s t e n e r to be able to i n f e r exactly which

pri o r speech unit a pronoun, demonstrative, or comparative term

i s r e f e r r i n g to. For example, 1. Jack and John went up the

h i l l , 2. He f e l l down. In t h i s case i t i s unclear who i t i s

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that he r e f e r s to. Individuals with language and communication

d e f i c i t s often produce a r e l a t i v e l y high number of these

incompetent references (e.g. Docherty, Schnur, & Harvey, 1988;

Harvey, 1983) . Past studies have also shown that these

communication-disordered individuals may e x h i b i t less cohesion

i n t h e i r speech, or may use more r e i t e r a t i v e ( l e x i c a l cohesion)

than semantic cohesive strategies (e.g. Rochester & Martin,

1979). I f psychopaths do i n fact have d i f f i c u l t y i n l i n k i n g

speech u n i t s , then they might have d i f f i c u l t y i n forming

cohesive texts and i n using the r e f e r e n t i a l p h o r i c i t y system

e f f e c t i v e l y .

Coherence, unlike cohesion, i s concerned with defining the

meaning r e l a t i o n s h i p s that exist among events or propositions

described within a text (e.g. Reiser & Black, 1982). The

measure of coherence used in the present study i s p l o t - u n i t

analysis (e.g. Botvin & Sutton-Smith, 1977; Gillam, 1989).

Plot-unit analysis assesses the course of actions or events

that makes up a narrative. For example, an i n i t i a l state of

threat should be followed by an action to remove or deal with

the threat, and then some type of resolution (successful or not

successful). If the i n i t i a l state of threat i s an important

part of the story being told, and i f i t i s not referred back

to, then the story w i l l seem less coherent.

Consider the following short narratives that were

generated s p e c i f i c a l l y to the prompt, "I want you to t e l l me

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about a time you f e l t r e a l l y angry. Try to remember how you

f e l t then and then t e l l me what happened" (pauses and

hesitations not included):

1. I was at home fe e l i n g lousy [negative f e e l i n g state] -

because my f r i e n d J. ratted on me [ v i l l a i n y ] - I figured

I'd get even by paying a v i s i t to h i s o l d lady [plan] - So

I went to her house and scared her a b i t [plan c a r r i e d

out] - She t o l d J. - and I was glad [negative f e e l i n g

state n u l l i f i e d ] - cause he deserved i t - He didn't think

I had i t in me - He's a f r a i d of me now [ v i l l a i n y

n u l l i f i e d ]

The p l o t units are: a. negative f e e l i n g state/negative

feeling state n u l l i f i e d

b. v i l l a i n y / v i l l a i n y n u l l i f i e d

c. plan/plan ca r r i e d out

2. Angry - I was - I was angry - [negative f e e l i n g state]

These tough guys were bugging me [threat] at the bar. My

g i r l - f r i e n d was there. She wanted me to go with her to get

a hose or something [plan]. These guys kept bugging me. My

f r i e n d P. was there. He's complaining away cause I was

supposed to be putting up t h i s job. They wouldn't stop so

I beat on t h i s guy [attack] Then I went shopping with K.

( g i r l - f r i e n d ) [plan carried out]

In t h i s narrative the plot units are:

a. negative f e e l i n g state/ ? (possible

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n u l l i f i c a t i o n )

b. threat/ ? (possible n u l l i f i c a t i o n )

c. plan/plan c a r r i e d out

d. attack/? (possible counterattack,

wound, k i l l , flee)

If the two texts above are compared i t can be seen that

the f i r s t e x hibits a more coherent des c r i p t i o n (1. i s from a

nonpsychopath; 2. i s from a psychopath). This i s p a r t l y due to

a difference between the texts i n the amount of closure of plot

units. I f a great deal of inference i s applied to the second

narrative, a reader might guess that the protagonist i n the

story might have had his negative feelings n u l l i f i e d or he

would not have gone shopping, or that the e n t i r e threat (these

guys) was somehow n u l l i f i e d because he was even able to go

shopping. A great deal more inference i s required for the

second narrative because concepts have not been s p e c i f i c a l l y

linked together. Consequently, the second narrative i s more

vague or lacks the same degree of coherence as the f i r s t . I f

psychopaths do have d i f f i c u l t y in l i n k i n g together concepts i n

th e i r speech, then psychopathy should be associated with

f a i l u r e s i n making these t i e s .

In addition to the question of how well speech units may

be linked together i n psychopaths' language there i s the larger

issue of how well psychopaths actually communicate. Observers

in our lab have suggested that psychopaths have d i f f i c u l t y i n

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adhering to one t r a i n of thought, use excessive jargon, and

sometimes use words they have made up. For t h i s reason dyadic

speech was assessed i n psychopaths by r a t i n g t h e i r

conversational language on the Scale for the Assessment of

Thought, Language, and Communication (TLC; Andreasen, 1979a;

1979b). Although t h i s instrument was developed as a measure of

formal thought disorder, i t s author has described i t mostly as

a scale to assess language and communication d e f i c i t s from

which a disorder of thought may or may not be i n f e r r e d . In the

present study the TLC ratings were taken to represent a d e f i c i t

i n language or communication and not thought disorder per se.

For instance, the TLC includes a category of derailment. A high

r a t i n g on t h i s category suggests that an i n d i v i d u a l produces

speech where ideas are only obliguely r e l a t e d to previously

presented ones. This may be representative of some underlying

disturbance of thought, but more importantly, i t impairs

communication since a li s t e n e r w i l l f i n d d e r a i l e d discourse

d i f f i c u l t to understand. To be consistent with previous studies

that have used the TLC in assessing communication impairments

i n various psychopathological groups, the term thought disorder

w i l l be used with reference to the TLC. However, thought

disorder w i l l be taken to mean a d e f i c i t i n language or

communication measured by c l i n i c a l r a t i n g s cales.

Because high TLC scores are evident i n c e r t a i n

pathological groups, a structured diagnostic interview, the

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Schedule for A f f e c t i v e Disorders and Schizophrenia - Lifetime

Version (SADS-L; Spitzer, Endicott, & Robins, 1979) was

administered to diagnose functional p s y c h i a t r i c disorders which

may be r e l a t e d to thought disorder. Diagnoses were made using

the t h i r d e d i t i o n of the Research Diagnostic C r i t e r i a (RDC;

Spitzer, Endicott, & Robins, 1989). This ensured that a l l

subjects were normal with respect to the functional p s y c h i a t r i c

disorders characterized by thought disorder.

By analyzing the narrative speech of psychopaths through

cohesion and coherence measures t h i s study was intended to t e s t

the hypotheses that psychopathy i s associated with the

production of speech units that are poorly connected or

integrated. In addition, by obtaining an o v e r a l l measure of

communication impairment in the dyadic speech of psychopaths,

the hypothesis was tested that psychopaths s u f f e r from a more

general d e f i c i t i n communication.

Psychopathy

The Assessment of Psychopathy

For a number of reasons psychopaths have usually been

studied i n a forensic environment. F i r s t , psychopaths are

easiest to f i n d i n prisons and j a i l s . Second, assessment

devices have often focused on the commission of a n t i s o c i a l acts

as opposed to the i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of personality v a r i a b l e s . This

trend i s r e f l e c t e d i n the d e f i n i t i o n of a n t i s o c i a l personality

disorder described i n the current edition of The Diagnostic and

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S t a t i s t i c a l Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R; American

Psychiatric Association, 1987).

For the research proposed here the Revised Psychopathy

Checklist (PCL-R: Hare, 1991; Hare et a l . , 1990) was used to

assess psychopathy. Extensive evidence att e s t s to the

r e l i a b i l i t y and v a l i d i t y of the Psychopathy Checkl i s t for the

assessment of psychopathy i n criminal populations (Hare, 1980,

1983, 1985b, 1990; Hare et a l . , 1990; Harpur, Hakstian, & Hare,

1988; Harpur, Hare, & Hakstian, 1989; Newman & Kosson, 1986;

Wong, 1984).

Unlike the DSM-III-R, the PCL-R measures two correlated

constructs that are both considered important elements of the

psychopathic personality (Harpur et a l . , 1989). Factor 1

includes items measuring an egocentric, c a l l o u s and remorseless

use of others and defines a personality construct that c l o s e l y

resembles the c l a s s i c a l c l i n i c a l description of the psychopath

(e.g. Cleckley, 1976). Factor 2 encompasses items related to a

chron i c a l l y unstable and a n t i s o c i a l l i f e s t y l e and resembles the

diagnosis of a n t i s o c i a l personality disorder defined i n DSM-

III-R.

Unless otherwise noted, studies c i t e d i n the following

review w i l l have used the PCL-R (or i t s o r i g i n a l version) to

assess psychopathy.

Psychopathy's Relationship to other Constructs

Psychopathy has been found to be p o s i t i v e l y correlated

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with scores on measures of impulsivity, machiavellianism,

narcissism, and sensation seeking, but negatively related to

measures of s o c i a l i z a t i o n (Hare, 1991; Harpur et a l . , 1989).

Foreman (1988) found that psychopathy was p o s i t i v e l y correlated

with an interpersonal s t y l e of dominance, but negatively

correlated with nurturance, as measured by the Interpersonal

Adjective Scales (Wiggins, P h i l l i p s , & Trapnell, 1990) .

Rorschach responses made by psychopaths have been found to

correlate with psychodynamic measures related to narcissism,

egocentricity, low anxiety and emotional detachment (Gacono,

1990; Gacono & Meloy, 1988).

Psychopathy i s also associated with diagnoses or ratings

of substance abuse disorder, h i s t r i o n i c personality disorder,

n a r c i s s i s t i c personality disorder, and a n t i s o c i a l personality

disorder (Hart and Hare, 1989; Smith and Newman, 1990;

Hemphill, Hart, & Hare, 1990).

Generally, psychopathy does not overlap with mental

disorders t y p i c a l l y associated with psychosis or thought

disorder. Hart and Hare (1989) found that i n a forensic

p s y c h i a t r i c population, patients diagnosed as psychopathic were

less l i k e l y than other patients to receive a DSM-III Axis I

diagnosis. Furthermore, psychopathy was negatively correlated

with p r o t o t y p i c a l i t y ratings of schizophrenia and had an odds-

r a t i o of l e s s than one for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Psychopathy and Language

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C l i n i c a l l y , i t has often been noted that psychopaths

appear to be highly verbal (Cleckley, 1976). Many can be

disarmingly charming and t e l l impressive s e l f - s e r v i n g s t o r i e s

that lead to a r t f u l swindles (Millon, 1981). Their glibness,

i n s i n c e r i t y , and a b i l i t y to deceive a l l appear to involve an

e f f e c t i v e use of language (Hare et a l . , 1988). However,

observations made by Hare and his colleagues suggest a

d i f f e r e n t picture of psychopaths' language (Hare & Gillstrom,

1991; Hare, Forth & Hart, 1989). After viewing hundreds of

hours of videotaped interviews with psychopathic and

nonpsychopathic criminals, and conducting such interviews

themselves, observers i n Hare's lab have often suggested that

psychopaths appear to use excessive jargon, poorly integrated

phrases, and that they seem to have d i f f i c u l t y adhering to one

t r a i n of thought. This has led to the suggestion that there i s

a poor integration of the thoughts and concepts underlying the

speech of psychopaths (Hare and Gillstrom, 1991). Currently,

there are no studies which d i r e c t l y address these issues, but

there are some which offe r results suggestive of differences

between psychopaths and others in the perception and production

of speech.

E i c h l e r (1965) analyzed the speech of young adult males

who met the c r i t e r i a for the American P s y c h i a t r i c Associations'

(1952) category of sociopathic disorder. He found that

sociopaths scored higher than did normals on the categories of

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negation, r e t r a c t i o n , q u a l i f i e r s , and evaluation. Q u a l i f i e r s

(suppose, more or less, etc.) tend to add ambiguity to

statements. Retractors - a word or phrase that p a r t i a l l y or

t o t a l l y detracts from the statement preceding i t - also reduce

language c l a r i t y .

E i c h l e r ' s r e s u l t s suggest that there may be a basic

conceptual inconsistency and i l l o g i c a l i t y i n sociopathic

thought. For example, to the question, "Did you ever s t e a l from

them {foster family}?", a psychopath studied i n our lab

re p l i e d , " I t wasn't r e a l l y too bad. Not too often. Once i n a

while I'd take some pillows or something. But I wouldn't be

ste a l i n g . I'd just take them and use them and lose them or

something. 1 1

In a previous study, Weintraub and Aronson (1962) found

that i n the speech of normal young adult males, evaluators (a

value judgement) and q u a l i f i e r s , r e t r a c t o r s , and q u a l i f i e r s ,

and negators (no, not, nothing, etc.) and r e t r a c t o r s were

highly correlated. Therefore t h e i r co-occurrence i n the speech

of psychopaths would not be considered unusual. However,

excessive use of q u a l i f i e r s , retractors and negators would

re s u l t i n speech f i l l e d with the following type of statement,

"I guess that was good, but i t r e a l l y wasn't." This would

provide less than optimal information for the l i s t e n e r as i t i s

conceptually inconsistent and ambiguous i n meaning.

A second i n d i r e c t method of assessing the a b i l i t y of

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psychopaths to li n k conceptual units i n t h e i r speech i s to

study the hand gestures they make while speaking. The rationale

for t h i s research i s that gestures may have t h e i r basis i n the

same i n t e r n a l processes as speech, and may be viewed as an

external representation of these processes (e.g. Butterworth &

Beattie, 1976; Cicone, Wapner, F o l d i , Z u r i f , & Gardner, 1979;

Gillstrom & Hare, 1988; McNeill, 1985).

Gi l l s t r o m and Hare (1988) assessed the degree to which

psychopaths made use of diff e r e n t types of hand gestures while

involved i n conversation. They found that psychopaths, r e l a t i v e

to nonpsychopaths, made inordinate use of a p a r t i c u l a r type of

hand gesture, referred to as a beat. Beats are small rapid hand

movements that occur during speech or pauses i n speech. Beats

may r e f l e c t the degree to which discourse i s broken down into

functionally discreet units (McNeill & Levy, 1982), and may

mark meta-linguistic points in the breakdown of speech

processes, possibly r e f l e c t i n g an attempt to r e i n s t a t e speech

flow (McNeill, 1985). Gillstrom and Hare (1988) suggested that

the overuse of beats may mean that the cen t r a l language

processes of psychopaths are organized into r e l a t i v e l y small

conceptual units. This would be r e f l e c t e d i n speech which i s

made up of short, poorly integrated phrases.

Although there have been no empirical studies that have

investigated the speech output of psychopaths, a number of

studies have looked at the way i n which psychopaths d i f f e r from

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nonpsychopaths i n the processing of simple verbal input. These

investigations have been summarized i n a recent review a r t i c l e

(Hare et a l . , 1988), but w i l l be b r i e f l y described here since

they suggest that psychopaths may perceive or process language

d i f f e r e n t l y than do nonpsychopaths.

In general, these investigations involved the study of

perceptual asymmetries with divided v i s u a l f i e l d or d i c h o t i c

l i s t e n i n g techniques. Typically, when single words are

presented to both ears simultaneously, or a l t e r n a t e l y to the

l e f t or r i g h t v i s u a l f i e l d , most right-handed i n d i v i d u a l s

exhibit a r i g h t ear or a right v i s u a l f i e l d advantage for the

report of the s t i m u l i they have heard or seen. This i s due to

the neurophysiology of the vis u a l and auditory systems coupled

with control of language functions by the l e f t hemisphere i n

most i n d i v i d u a l s . In the auditory system c o n t r a l a t e r a l

projections are dominant, with the r e s u l t that information

presented to the r i g h t ear projects most strongly to the l e f t

hemisphere. Information presented to the r i g h t v i s u a l f i e l d

projects to the l e f t hemisphere from the r i g h t nasal hemiretina

and the l e f t temporal hemiretina. Information transmitted

i n i t i a l l y to the l e f t hemisphere i s better perceived and

reported, presumably r e f l e c t i n g more e f f i c i e n t or p r e f e r e n t i a l

processing of l i n g u i s t i c materials by that hemisphere.

Using a standard dichotic l i s t e n i n g paradigm, Hare and

McPherson (1984) found that psychopaths showed a smaller r i g h t -

-15-

ear advantage (less l a t e r a l i z a t i o n ) than did nonpsychopaths.

Despite t h i s reduced l a t e r a l i t y the o v e r a l l performance of

psychopaths was as good as that of nonpsychopaths.

In a divided v i s u a l f i e l d task where subjects saw common

words flashed b r i e f l y to either the l e f t or r i g h t v i s u a l f i e l d ,

psychopaths and nonpsychopaths both exhibited a r i g h t v i s u a l

f i e l d - l e f t hemisphere advantage (Hare, 1979). However, i n a

divided v i s u a l - f i e l d task that involved d i f f e r i n g l e v e l s of

semantic categorization, l a t e r a l i z a t i o n differences between

psychopaths and nonpsychopaths were obtained (Hare & J u t a i ,

1988). S p e c i f i c a l l y , when words were required t o be matched on

the basis of morphological features, or whether or not they

were a member of a concrete category, psychopaths and

nonpsychopaths both exhibited the fewest errors for s t i m u l i

presented to the r i g h t v i s u a l - f i e l d ( l e f t hemisphere). When the

subjects had to match words to a superordinate abstract

category, which presumably required a greater degree of

semantic processing, psychopaths made the fewest errors for

sti m u l i presented to the l e f t v i s u a l - f i e l d ( r i g h t hemisphere)

whereas nonpsychopaths continued to perform i n the expected

manner.

The most general conclusions that can be drawn from these

studies i s that the l e f t hemisphere of psychopaths i s not

strongly s p e c i a l i z e d for language or that the resources for

language processing i n the l e f t hemisphere are r e l a t i v e l y

-16-

limited i n psychopaths (Hare et a l . , 1988). More s p e c i f i c a l l y ,

psychopaths may have d i f f i c u l t y in the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of

l e x i c a l items within the l e f t hemisphere.

None of the tasks in the reviewed studies could be

considered to be d i f f i c u l t r e l a t i v e to the requirement that an

individual produce a cohesive and coherent narrative of some

l i f e event. In the research presented here psychopaths were

required to produce such a text. Psychopaths, when compared to

nonpsychopaths, were expected to r e l y more on simple l e x i c a l

relationships than semantic and l o g i c a l ones i n producing

cohesive texts.

Psychopathy and A f f e c t i v e Processing

C l i n i c i a n s have long noted that psychopaths seem to suffer

from a general poverty of a f f e c t . This defect has generally

been described as a shallowness of f e e l i n g (e.g. Cleckley,

1976; Grant, 1977), r e f l e c t e d behaviourally i n l a b i l e and

short-lived expressions of emotion. "But mature whole hearted

anger...deep joy, and genuine despair are reactions not l i k e l y

to be found within t h i s scale" (Cleckley, 1976, p. 212).

Using experimental paradigms Hare and h i s colleagues (e.g.

Hare, 1978; Hare & Craigen, 1974) have demonstrated that

psychopaths show unusual autonomic responses following a sig n a l

of an impending aversive event. Psychopaths co n s i s t e n t l y show

smaller than usual skin conductance responses but larger than

usual heart rate acceleration. Hare (1978, 1982) has suggested

-17-

that t h i s may r e f l e c t an adaptive coping mechanism whereby the

heart rate acceleration helps psychopaths to reduce the impact

of the forthcoming aversive events. The small electrodermal

responses are seen as evidence for the success of t h i s coping

strategy.

Patrick and Lang (1989) found that psychopathic sex

offenders gave smaller autonomic responses during imagery of

f e a r f u l material than did other sex offenders. Psychopaths also

f a i l e d to exhibit a reduction i n the b l i n k - s t a r t l e r e f l e x while

viewing s l i d e s with p o s i t i v e a f f e c t i v e content and also f a i l e d

to exhibit appropriate f a c i a l muscle responses to s l i d e s with

negative content. Generally, these studies would seem to

support the notion that psychopaths, at least autonomically,

show anomalous or reduced responses to a f f e c t i v e information.

Language and Aff e c t i n Psychopaths

Cleckley (1976) suggested that psychopaths suffer from a

deep-seated semantic disorder which he termed semantic

dementia. At i t s core lay a complete lack of meaning-related

elaborative a f f e c t i v e processes. This d e f i c i t was then "masked"

by well functioning expressive and receptive processes. "Here

i s the spectacle of a person who uses a l l the words that would

be used by someone who understands, and who could define a l l

the words but who i s s t i l l blind to the meaning." (Cleckley,

1976, p.214). Others have described the psychopath i n a s i m i l a r

way: "... ideas of mutuality of sharing and of i d e n t i f i c a t i o n

-18-

are beyond h i s understanding in an emotional sense; he knows

only the book meaning of words" (Grant, 1977. p. 50).

Cleckley's description of semantic dementia suggests that

psychopaths suffer from an i n a b i l i t y to r e l a t e r e a l feelings to

words.

Although there have been a variety of studies examining

language processing i n psychopaths, r e l a t i v e l y few

investigations have e x p l i c i t l y examined the processing of

a f f e c t i v e l i n g u i s t i c information. One recent study (Williamson,

et a l . , 1990) examined the responses of psychopaths to

emotional and neutral words during a divided v i s u a l f i e l d

l e x i c a l decision task. The e x p l i c i t task involved

distinguishing between words and pronounceable nonwords, but

the experimental manipulation of interest was whether or not

the decision time and event-related brain p o t e n t i a l s (ERPs)

would be d i f f e r e n t for emotional and neutral words. Consistent

with the l i t e r a t u r e , nonpsychopaths responded more quickly to

the emotional than to the nonemotional words, and amplitudes of

s p e c i f i c ERP components were larger in response to emotional

words than to neutral words. Psychopaths f a i l e d to show these

eff e c t s , suggesting that they carried out less semantic

elaboration of the a f f e c t i v e words than did the nonpsychopaths.

Whether t h i s r e f l e c t e d a f a i l u r e to integrate a f f e c t i v e and

l i n g u i s t i c processes, or a general f a i l u r e of elaborative

processes could not be determined from t h i s study.

-19-

Another recent investigation into the processing of

l i n g u i s t i c a l l y based a f f e c t i v e information provides some

evidence that i t i s the integration functions that are impaired

i n psychopaths (Williamson et a l . , 1991). Experiment 1

investigated the basis for the way i n which psychopaths group

words. Using a method described by Brownell, Potter, and

Michelow (1984) , subjects were required to i n d i c a t e which two

out of three words were most similar i n meaning. Psychopaths

were less l i k e l y to match words on the basis of emotional

p o l a r i t y (both words have a positive or negative a f f e c t i v e

tone) than were nonpsychopaths.

Osgood (Osgood, May, & Miron, 1975) has shown that the

evaluative or good-bad dimension accounts for most of the

variance individuals use when rating words. Psychopaths

appeared to make less use of t h i s basic component of word

meaning than did nonpsychopaths.

Taking t h i s observations into account, i n the second

experiment of Williamson et a l . (1990), i t was hypothesized

that i f psychopaths have a d e f i c i t i n making use of information

concerning emotional p o l a r i t y then they would tend to make

errors suggestive of a confusion of emotional valence. Other

psychopathological groups, most notably depressives

(Williamson, Crockett, Hurwitz, & Remick, i n press) and

schizophrenics (Cramer, Weegman, & O'Neil, 1989), have

previously been shown to confuse emotional valence.

-20-

Tests were constructed which required subjects to match

clauses or pictures on the basis of inf e r r e d emotional

information. Errors could be made in a number of ways including

the matching of emotions of opposite valence. A s i m i l a r l y

constructed p i c t o r i a l task was included to assess the

s p e c i f i c i t y of t h i s e f f e c t to l i n g u i s t i c information. An

analysis of the types of errors made supported the hypothesis

that psychopaths show a tendency to confuse emotions of

opposite p o l a r i t y , p a r t i c u l a r l y for the l i n g u i s t i c task. The

authors suggested that the results across the p i c t u r e and

sentence tasks may have indicated that psychopaths have

d i f f i c u l t y i n integrating information across l i n g u i s t i c units

only when a f f e c t i v e processing i n the formation of conceptual

relationships i s required.

For t h i s reason, i n the present study, subjects were asked

to produce two s t o r i e s , both of which were drawn from the

subjects' own experience. One concerned a putative emotional

topic and the other a neutral topic. I t was predicted that

psychopathy would be most strongly associated with dependent

measures i n the analysis of the a f f e c t i v e rather than the

neutral narrative.

Thought Disorder

Formal thought disorder has been described as a disruption

in the l o g i c a l r e l a t i o n s h i p among ideas (Bleuler, 1950).

Concept boundaries may become f l u i d so that incongruous ideas

-21-

and objects are seen as related (e.g. Meehl, 1962). In

addition, disorders r e l a t i n g to the content of thought, rather

than i t s form, have also been included under the d e f i n i t i o n of

thought disorder. For instance, responses to s t i m u l i may be

bizarre or i d i o s y n c r a t i c (e.g. Harrow, Grossman, Marshall,

S i l v e r s t e i n , & Meltzer, 1982). I n i t i a l l y , c l i n i c a l observation

led to the b e l i e f that thought disorder was pathognomic of

schizophrenia (Bleuler, 1950); however, recent studies suggest

that thought disorder may be present i n nonschizophrenics (e.g.

Andreasen & Powers, 1974; Harvey & Brault, 1986). Some

investigators have suggested that disordered thinking f i t s

along a continuum with normal thinking (Harrow & Quinlan,

1977). Harrow and Quinlan (1977) found that schizophrenics

d i f f e r e d from other patient groups on measures of severe

deviant thinking, but not on measures of milder thought

disorder. Andreasen and Grove (1986) suggested that i n fact

normal indivi d u a l s may exhibit mild thought disorder. One

category of thought disorder - derailment - i s found i n normal

individuals at s i g n i f i c a n t levels. Twenty to t h i r t y percent of

normals have been reported to exhibit derailment at greater

than mild l e v e l s (Andreasen & Grove, 1986; Oltmanns, Murphy,

Berenbaum, & Dunlop, 1985).

Andreasen (1979a, 1979b) developed a set of d e f i n i t i o n s

that many researchers have used in studying disordered speech.

These d e f i n i t i o n s cover eighteen categories of thought disorder

- 2 2 -

such as derailment, tan g e n t i a l i t y (replying to a question i n an

oblique or irrelevant manner), and poverty of content of speech

(an adequate amount of speech containing l i t t l e information).

The scale that the categories form i s known as the Scale for

the Assessment of Thought, Language, and Communication

Disorders (TLC; Andreasen, 1980). This scale emphasizes the

d i r e c t observation of language behaviour i n evaluating thought

disorder. The author makes the point that thought disorder i s

most often assessed from speech, and not from an i n d i v i d u a l ' s

thoughts; therefore "disorganized speech" rather than "thought

disorder" i s a more accurate term. As previously stated, the

present study conceptualized ratings on the TLC as being

indi c a t i v e of disordered communication or language. The TLC has

been shown to be both a r e l i a b l e and v a l i d instrument (e.g.

Andreasen, 1979a, 1979b; Andreasen & Grove, 1986; Docherty,

Schnur, & Harvey, 1988; Harvey, 1983; Harvey, Earle-Boyer, &

Levinson, 1988; Harvey, Earle-Boyer, & Weilgus, 1984) .

Past research has found that TLC-rated thought disorder i s

made up of several components that have d i f f e r e n t prognostic

significance and are sensitive to patient diagnosis. For

instance, poverty of speech appears to be an enduring feature

of chronic schizophrenic i l l n e s s (Andreasen, Hoffman, & Grove,

1985; Docherty, Schnur, & Harvey, 1988; Pogue-Geile & Harrow,

1984) and to predict poor outcome (Harvey et a l . , 1988).

Andreasen and Grove (1986) found that the negative signs of

- 2 3 -

thought disorder, poverty of speech and poverty of content of

speech (adequate amount of speech conveying l i t t l e

information), were most useful in predicting continued

impairment amongst ps y c h i a t r i c patients. In manic patients,

pos i t i v e rather than negative signs of thought disorder have

been found to be most stable in the acute stage of i l l n e s s

(Harvey et a l . , 1984).

In the present study, the scores for two subscales based

on TLC categories, as well as an o v e r a l l measure of thought

disorder, were calculated (Andreasen, 1979a). P o s i t i v e formal

thought disorder encompasses pressure of speech, t a n g e n t i a l i t y ,

derailment, incoherence, and i l l o g i c a l i t y . Negative formal

thought disorder includes only poverty of speech and poverty of

content of speech. The o v e r a l l score was the t o t a l of a l l

thought disorder categories. It was predicted that increasing

psychopathy would be associated with higher scores on p o s i t i v e

thought disorder, since the scale contains categories related

to a previous c l i n i c a l observation, namely that i n psychopathic

speech concepts are not well connected.

Cohesion: Meaning and Measurement

Cohesion i s defined by Halliday and Hasan (1976) as a

semantic relationship. Cohesion i s based on the meaning

existing between an element in a text and some other element

that i s c r u c i a l to i t s interpretation. The r e l a t i o n between

elements can be systematized by c l a s s i f y i n g them i n t o a small

-24-

number of d i s t i n c t categories: reference, conjunction, l e x i c a l ,

substitution, and e l l i p s e s . The l a t t e r two w i l l not be

discussed further as they are not included i n the present

research. Their occurrence i n the speech of subjects i n similar

studies has been shown to be of very low frequency (e.g.

Rochester & Martin, 1979; Wykes & Leff, 1982). I t should be

noted that since cohesion i s text based, t i e s may occur between

clauses that are not immediately adjacent to one another.

The various types of cohesion measured i n the present

study can be seen i n Table I. Referential cohesion ref e r s to

how an in d i v i d u a l i s able to interpret the meaning of one text

element because of i t s rel a t i o n s h i p to another text element. I t

i s interpretable either because i t i s i d e n t i f i e d with the

referent (pronomial, demonstrative) or because i t i s compared

with the referent (comparative). Conjunction i s d i f f e r e n t from

other cohesive relationships in that i t expresses the l o g i c a l

r elationships e x i s t i n g between clauses. These can be additive,

adversative, temporal, causal, or continuative i n nature. The

conjunction w i l l stand i n some type of r e l a t i o n s h i p to the

sentence preceding i t , l i n k i n g i t to the one that follows.

Lexical cohesion i s the r e i t e r a t i o n of a previous text element.

This can occur through straight r e p e t i t i o n (same roo t ) , a

synonym, a superordinate, or a general item. I t may involve the

r e p e t i t i o n of words, phrases, or whole clauses.

-25-

Table I

Categories of Cohesion

Category Subcategory Examples

Reference

Conjunction

1. Pronomial

2. Demonstrative

3. Comparative

1. Additive

2. Adversative

When we were walking out

of the bar one night a guy

grabs her // So I just

about got i n a f i g h t with

him

"And when the door opens

I'm going to get you" // I

just t o l d them that

It could take two months

to save the money //

That's a long time

I knew the bartender there

// And he always makes

nice strong drinks

I just took o f f // But

i t was the only time

(table continues)

-26-

Le x i c a l

3. Causal

4. Temporal

5. Continuative

1. Same root

2. Synonym

(or Co-hyponyms)

3. Superordinate

4. General item

We went out drinking //So

I had a l o t to drink

She went out that night

// But then I went out

with my buddies

He never taught before //

Actually the second year I

had my f i r s t year teacher

They put me i n to see the

doctor // I seen the

doctor

And I despised i t // Cause

I hate that c i t y with a

passion

We were s i t t i n g i n

Alph a v i l l e // This c i t y i s

dead

It was a puzzle that was

given to me // I can get

that thing together

Note. Categories are adapted from Rochester and Martin (1979) .

Quotations are from subjects in the present study. Presuming

-27-

items and t h e i r referent are underlined. // indicates

independent clause boundaries.

Halliday and Hasan have argued that the cohesive relations

that are established by conjunction and reference are semantic

i n nature while those established by l e x i s are

lexicogrammatical i n nature. However the expression of the

r e l a t i o n s requires both the semantic and lexicogrammatical

systems. This implies that simple word r e p e t i t i o n establishes

some type of semantic relationship. However, when a speaker

repeatedly uses some form of a word i n a text l e x i c a l cohesion

i s coded i r r e s p e c t i v e of the meaning of that word. Simple

l e x i c a l r e p e t i t i o n may not require the semantic encoding of

actual word meanings to act as a form of text cohesion. This i s

p a r t i c u l a r l y evident when the same l e x i c a l items are used

repeatedly across clauses or sentences, a speech p e c u l i a r i t y

that has been related to empty speech (Nicholas, Obler, Albert,

& Helm-Easterbrooks, 1985) and "schizophasic" speech (Chaika,

1974). Chaika (1974) suggested that schizophrenics may not be

able to match semantic features to words i n the lexicon.

Fine (1978) has suggested that conjunction and reference

should be viewed as tending to establish meaning relationships,

whereas l e x i c a l t i e s should be viewed as e s t a b l i s h i n g more

formal l i n k s . Generally, simple r e p e t i t i o n has been viewed as

carrying the least amount of meaningful information (Fine,

-28-

1978; Rochester & Martin, 1979).

Past studies have investigated whether"or not thought

disordered i n d i v i d u a l s r e l y more on r e i t e r a t i o n than on the

semantic r e l a t i o n s h i p s expressed by r e f e r e n t i a l cohesion (e.g.,

Rochester and Martin, 1979). However, the r e s u l t s of these

studies have been mixed.

Rochester and Martin (1979) , i n t h e i r study of

schizophrenic speakers, examined cohesive r e l a t i o n s h i p s as a

means of describing how thought disordered speakers might

d i f f e r from non-thought disordered speakers. They hypothesized

that the vague and tangential speech often seen i n thought

disordered speakers may be due to a f a i l u r e to l i n k clauses to

p r i o r discourse. They predicted that t h i s might be r e a l i z e d i n

fewer cohesive t i e s of a l l types, or i n a preponderance of

l e x i c a l t i e s . The authors hypothesized that r e i t e r a t i o n seems

to require le s s extensive integration of textual information

than do other forms of cohesion. The authors' hypotheses proved

to be p a r t i a l l y correct. Overall, both thought disordered and

non-thought disordered schizophrenics used le s s cohesion than

the normal group. However, as predicted, the thought disordered

group used more l e x i c a l cohesion than did the non-thought

disordered group. Thought disordered speakers tended to r e l y

very heavily on l e x i c a l cohesion, es p e c i a l l y simple r e p e t i t i o n

as opposed to synonymy or general categories. The investigators

concluded that thought disordered speakers were a c t i v e l y

- 2 9 -

p r o c e s s i n g a t a l e x i c o g r a m m a t i c a l l e v e l , t h e r e b y f o r m i n g

l e x i c a l c h a i n s , but t h e y o f t e n d i d not form t h e more m e a n i n g f u l

semantic t i e s .

S i m i l a r r e s u l t s were o b t a i n e d f o r t h e o f f s p r i n g o f

s c h i z o p h r e n i c s i n a s t u d y of t h e speech o f c h i l d r e n v u l n e r a b l e

t o p s y c h o p a t h o l o g y (Harvey, Weintraub, & N e a l e , 1982). These

c h i l d r e n used more l e x i c a l t i e s t h a n d i d normal c h i l d r e n .

C h i l d r e n o f s c h i z o p h r e n i c s a l s o used fewer c o h e s i v e t i e s

o v e r a l l . The a u t h o r s suggested t h a t t h e i r r e s u l t s were

i n d i c a t i v e o f p o o r l y l i n k e d speech u n i t s i n t h e c h i l d r e n o f

s c h i z o p h r e n i c p a r e n t s .

R o c h e s t e r and M a r t i n (1979) found t h a t t h o u g h t d i s o r d e r e d

speakers used more l e x i c a l c o h e s i o n t h a n d i d n o r m a l s p e a k e r s .

Other r e s e a r c h e r s have found no d i f f e r e n c e s between normal

a d u l t s and p a t h o l o g i c a l groups i n t h e i r use o f l e x i c a l t i e s

(Harvey, 1983; R a g i n & Oltmanns, 1986). However, R o c h e s t e r and

M a r t i n (1979) used as t h e i r dependent measure t h e p r o p o r t i o n o f

l e x i c a l c o h e s i o n t o o t h e r t y p e s o f c o h e s i o n , whereas Harvey

(1983) and R a g i n and Oltmanns (1986) used number o f t i e s p e r

c l a u s e . Harvey r e p o r t e d t h a t i f R o c h e s t e r and M a r t i n s ' method

had been used i n h i s s t u d y , then t h e r e l a t i v e p r o p o r t i o n s o f

l e x i c a l c o h e s i o n would have d i s t i n g u i s h e d n o r m a l s from

p a t i e n t s . R a g i n and Oltmann's study o f l e x i c a l c o h e s i o n and

thought d i s o r d e r s u f f e r e d from a number o f m e t h o d o l o g i c a l

problems w h i c h makes i t d i f f i c u l t t o e v a l u a t e . I n comparing

-30-

normals, schizophrenics, schizoaffectives, and manics the

authors used an average of less than ten subjects per group and

based t h e i r analysis on only f i f t e e n clauses per subject. Not

s u r p r i s i n g l y , they found few group differences. Those that did

prove s i g n i f i c a n t were related to within-clause l e x i c a l

cohesion (the r a t i o n a l e for t h i s measurement was not made

clear) and changes i n cohesion over time. The lack of within-

clause l e x i c a l cohesion was related to thought disorder and not

c l i n i c a l diagnosis. As the pathological subjects became less

thought disordered they used less l e x i c a l cohesion.

A number of studies have looked at cohesive t i e s i n

r e l a t i o n to thought disorder and d i f f e r e n t types of

psychopathology (e.g. Harvey, 1983; Ragin & Oltmanns, 1986;

Wykes & Leff, 1982). This research has grown out of the debate

about whether or not manics, l i k e schizophrenics, can be

considered thought disordered. Harvey (1983), found that

thought disordered schizophrenics and manics used less

reference and conjunctive t i e s than did normal speakers. The

non-thought disordered speech segments of thought disordered

patients did not d i f f e r from those of normals.

What i s most important about t h i s study i s that i t

established a r e l a t i o n s h i p not between disordered communication

and diagnosis, but between disordered communication and c e r t a i n

patterns of cohesive t i e s . Wykes and Leff (1982) suggest that

cohesion analysis may uncover whether or not ideas and phrases

-31-

are appropriately linked. If they are not, the authors f e l t

that such a d e f i c i t was most closely related to the thought

disorder category of derailment.

In the present study cohesion analysis allowed the

assessment of the extent to which psychopathy was associated

with a tendency to produce poorly developed texts through an

inadequate use of cohesive t i e s , or perhaps through the

inordinate use of l e x i c a l cohesion. It was hypothesized that i f

psychopaths have a general d e f i c i t in integrating semantic

information to form cohesive texts, then psychopathy would be

associated with narratives f i l l e d with l e x i c a l t i e s at the

expense of other cohesive t i e s . An alternative p r e d i c t i o n was

that i f psychopathy i s related to a generalized d e f i c i t i n the

formation of a text through cohesive re l a t i o n s h i p s , then

psychopathy would be associated with fewer t i e s of a l l types.

If psychopathy i s related s p e c i f i c a l l y to a verbal a f f e c t i v e

d e f i c i t that involves a d i f f i c u l t y in carrying out the semantic

integration necessary for combining a f f e c t i v e and l i n g u i s t i c

information, then i t was predicted that these d e f i c i t s would be

apparent only for a f f e c t i v e texts.

The Register of the Narratives

Halliday and Hasan (1976) stress the fact that r e g i s t e r ,

along with cohesion (e.g. E l l i s & Ure, 1969; Hymes, 1964)

define a text. The concept of register has been described i n

various ways but usually includes information concerning the

-32-

topic or f i e l d of a text, i t s mode, i t s purpose or message-

form, and the rel a t i o n s h i p existing between l i s t e n e r and

speaker. Register re l a t e s to the context of a s i t u a t i o n and the

fact that a text i s a communication.

The narratives produced in the present research were texts

of planned discourse. Subjects were asked to produce a story

about a past event i n t h e i r l i v e s based on a p a r t i c u l a r topic.

They were given a few minutes to think about what to say and

how to say i t . They were given some di r e c t i v e s on what form i t

should take. The topics of the discourses were r e l a t i v e l y

unrestricted i n that subjects could t e l l a story about any time

they f e l t angry or had d i f f i c u l t y i n doing something. The

relationship e x i s t i n g between the l i s t e n e r and speaker was

f a i r l y formal; however the li s t e n e r was not perceived as being

a member of the prison bureaucracy. The mode of the s i t u a t i o n

was oral with an orientation to relate past events that were

personal to the speaker. From the l i s t e n e r ' s viewpoint, the

purpose of the communication was for the speaker to produce a

planned discourse i n story form. Ochs (1979) has pointed out

that there are often differences between planned and unplanned

discourse. E s s e n t i a l l y , discourse that i s planned makes

r e l a t i v e l y more use of adult sy n t a c t i c a l constructions than i s

seen i n unplanned discourse. For instance, the syntax w i l l make

a semantic l i n k e x p l i c i t and s p e c i f i c so that conjunctions such

as "because" or "so" are expressed (e.g. "I'm so t i r e d - I went

-33-

running today - I think I ' l l r est" versus "I'm so t i r e d because

I went running today so I think I ' l l r e s t " ) . This may be

because i t takes more planning to form s p e c i f i c semantic

relationships.

There i s no reason to believe that psychopathy might be

associated with a f a i l u r e to be s e n s i t i v e to the r e g i s t e r of a

discourse. I f i n fact psychopaths can be charming and are good

manipulators, and yet produce speech that i s not well

connected, then one might expect them to be e s p e c i a l l y

sensitive to the demands of the l i s t e n e r at a pragmatic l e v e l .

It should be noted that other authors have had a less

rigorous view of what constitutes textness. P e t o f i (1985)

defines a text as a verbal object which i s i d e n t i f i e d as a text

by any one interpreter at any p a r t i c u l a r time. Brown and Yule

(1983) simply state that a text " i s the verbal record of a

communicative event (p. 190)." From t h i s viewpoint, nothing

defines textness except for an individual's d e c i s i o n that a

given object i s a whole i n the communication context. Coherence

i s not necessary to form a text. For example, a disorganized

monologue produced by a thought disordered speaker may form a

text since i t can be viewed as a sample of incoherent speech.

Reference Patterns

Unlike l e x i c a l and conjunctive cohesion, r e f e r e n t i a l

cohesion i s part of one of the p h o r i c i t y systems i n English.

Phoricity systems r e f e r to the structuring of utterances on the

- 3 4 -

basis of what speakers assume the i r l i s t e n e r s know. They

involve speech units that require previously presented

information for t h e i r interpretation. The noun phrase or

nominal group i s one such speech unit. Generally, there are two

types of nominal groups. The f i r s t simply presents new

information and the second presumes previous information so

that i t may be understood by the l i s t e n e r . Information can be

presumed from previous verbal information as i n r e f e r e n t i a l

cohesion, e i t h e r e x p l i c i t l y (e.g., So I was i n the c i t y and I

didn't l i k e i t ) or i m p l i c i t l y (e.g., I went to the c i t y and

robbed the bank). Information can also be presumed from the

immediate environment (e.g., Look at that guard), or general

knowledge (e.g. The p o l i c e are bad). Sometimes, the references

contained i n a text are ambiguous. One example of t h i s type of

reference would be:

I was d r i v i n g i n my car with my g i r l f r i e n d and my ex-

g i r l f r i e n d

Then she said that she didn't believe me

Since i t i s unclear who i t i s that she r e f e r s to, the

l i s t e n e r i s unable to interpret the second clause. References

can also be unclear. For instance a speaker may make a

pronomial reference when there i s no previous referent. If an

individual's utterances are f u l l of unclear or ambiguous

references then the l i s t e n e r i s unable to e f f e c t i v e l y

understand what the speaker means.

- 3 5 -

Rochester and Martin (1979) found that thought disordered

speech samples contained more unclear and ambiguous references

than did non-thought disordered samples. This f i n d i n g has been

consistent across a number of studies. Harvey (1983) found that

unclear and ambiguous references d i f f e r e n t i a t e d between the

speech of thought disordered and nonthought disordered manics

and schizophrenics. Harvey et a l . (1982) also reported that the

speech of children of schizophrenics contained more of these

types of references than did the children of normals and other

at r i s k groups. Based on a study that assessed thought disorder

and reference d i f f i c u l t i e s at a six month i n t e r v a l , Docherty et

a l . (1988) suggested that the frequency of incompetent

references (ambiguous and unclear combined) may be a stable

t r a i t of schizophrenics.

In the present study the unclear and ambiguous references

categories were coded and combined into the category of

incompetent references (Docherty et a l . , 1988). This category

was then correlated with PCL-R scores. I t was predicted that i f

increasingly high scores on the PCL-R are associated with a

f a i l u r e to develop texts on a semantic l e v e l , then they should

also be associated with a r e l a t i v e l y high degree of incompetent

references. A l t e r n a t i v e l y , i f psychopathy i s associated with

p a r t i c u l a r d i f f i c u l t i e s i n the integration of a f f e c t and

language, then incompetent references would be mostly

associated with the a f f e c t i v e narrative.

-36 -

C o h e r e n c e : M e a n i n g a n d M e a s u r e m e n t

A l t h o u g h c o h e s i o n c a n b e u s e d t o i d e n t i f y t h e u n i t y o f a

t e x t i t d o e s n o t t h e g u a r a n t e e t h a t a d i s c o u r s e w i l l b e

u n d e r s t a n d a b l e o r m e a n i n g f u l . C o h e s i o n c a n b e s c o r e d

i r r e s p e c t i v e o f m e a n i n g r e l a t i o n s h i p s a n d i s t h e r e f o r e n o t a n

a d e q u a t e a s s e s s m e n t o f t h e o v e r a l l u n d e r s t a n d a b i l i t y o f

d i s c o u r s e . I n a s s e s s i n g t h e c o h e r e n c e o f s p e e c h t h e

r e l a t i o n s h i p s e x i s t i n g b e t w e e n e v e n t s w i t h i n a d i s c o u r s e a r e

t a k e n i n t o a c c o u n t . I f c o n n e c t i o n s b e t w e e n p r o p o s i t i o n s a r e

w e a k , t h e n t h e o v e r a l l t e x t w i l l b e r e l a t i v e l y l e s s c o h e r e n t o r

u n d e r s t a n d a b l e . I n a n a l y z i n g a t e x t i t i s i m p o r t a n t t o

u n d e r s t a n d how a s e r i e s o f c o n c e p t s l i n k u p t o f o r m m o r e

c o m p l e x m e a n i n g s . T h i s c a n b e d o n e by e x a m i n i n g c o h e r e n c e . I n

c o n t r a s t t o c o h e s i o n , c o h e r e n c e i s more c o n c e r n e d w i t h

d e l i n e a t i n g t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p s t h a t e x i s t b e t w e e n e v e n t s

d e s c r i b e d w i t h i n a t e x t . T h e r e a r e a number o f s y s t e m s f o r

e x a m i n i n g t h e s e r e l a t i o n s h i p s ( e . g . G u l i c h & Q u a s t h o f f , 1 9 8 2 ;

O m a n s o n , 1 9 8 2 ; R e i s e r & B l a c k , 1 9 8 2 ) ; h o w e v e r t h e y h a v e n o t

o f t e n b e e n u s e d t o i n v e s t i g a t e p s y c h o p a t h o l o g i c a l g r o u p s . One

s t u d y h a s shown t h a t t e x t - b a s e d p r e s u p p o s i t i o n a l r e l a t i o n s h i p s

b e t w e e n p r o p o s i t i o n s t e n d t o b r e a k down i n s c h i z o p h r e n i c s

( H o f f m a n , K i r s t e n , S t o p e k , & C i c c h e t t i , 1982) .

P l o t - u n i t A n a l y s i s

I n t h e p r e s e n t s t u d y , t h e n a r r a t i v e s s u b j e c t s p r o d u c e

s h o u l d c o n t a i n some s t r u c t u r i n g o f s e m a n t i c r e l a t i o n s h i p s s o

-37-

that they form a meaningful text. The story should begin at the

beginning, move ahead reasonably smoothly i n time, and evaluate

states and events so that i t i s possible to i n f e r what the

story i s about (Polanyi, 1985). Subject narratives should meet

these conditions i f t h e i r discourse i s to be seen as coherent

and meaningful.

One way of describing these relationships i s through the

use of story grammars. Story grammars were constructed for the

description of the structure of a genre of s t o r i e s known as

f o l k - t a l e s . Very s p e c i f i c and invariant rules were developed to

describe the ordering of events within these s t o r i e s . However

these rules may not be appropriate for the analysis of

narratives that may be structured d i f f e r e n t l y (Mandler, 1984,

p. 17). For t h i s reason, the use of story grammars would not

seem to be appropriate f o r the present purposes.

Another way to approach the problem i s to look at the way

i n which expectancies are set up in the l i s t e n e r by information

given i n the narrative (Black & Reiser, 1982). Generally, i f a

problem i s mentioned that i s central to the point of the story,

then information concerning some type of re s o l u t i o n or outcome

i s expected to be provided by the narrator. I f the narrator i s

able to structure the story appropriately then both problem and

resolution or r e s u l t w i l l be provided. For instance, i f the

event involves anger, then the narrator should attempt to

explain what led to the anger and i t s outcome.

- 3 8 -

One way to assess t h i s i s through the use of p l o t - u n i t

analysis (Botvin & Sutton-Smith, 1977; Sutton-Smith, Botvin, &

Mahony, 1976). Compared to story grammars there i s more

emphasis on meaning in p l o t - u n i t analysis. Instead of

consisting of a schematic structure within which elements are

placed, p l o t - u n i t analysis i s directed at discovering how the

text explains the actions of the main characters. P l o t - u n i t s

are verbal noun dyads indicating action (or the p o t e n t i a l for

action) and resolution (e.g. injury - recovery or death). As

well as being sensitive to the structural complexity of a story

(Botvin & Sutton-Smith, 1977), these dyads are also useful i n

assessing the extent to which one concept i s linked to another

within a text. For instance, i f the occurrence of an injury i s

central to a story then some type of resolution or r e s u l t

should occur with regard to the injury. I f i t does not, then

the discourse may seem unconnected or vague. Secondary dyads

should not interrupt the flow of the story. If present, they

should be embedded within primary dyads (Botvin & Sutton-Smith,

1977).

As previously indicated, psychopaths may have d i f f i c u l t y

i n l i n k i n g conceptual units to form a coherent text. Plot-unit

analysis allowed the assessment of t h i s hypothesized d e f i c i t

through the i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of l o g i c a l conjugates which should

be present i n p a i r s . I t was predicted that psychopathy would be

associated with a tendency to introduce the f i r s t part of a

-39-

plo t - u n i t , but not to complete i t . The dependent measure i n

t h i s case was the proportion of closed to open p l o t u n i t s .

-40-

Experimental Hypotheses

It has been suggested that psychopaths' concepts, as

expressed i n t h e i r speech, are not well connected to one

another. This d e f i c i t may take one of a number of forms. Based

on c l i n i c a l observation and the research reviewed above, i t was

hypothesized that:

1. Psychopathy i s associated with an increase i n l e x i c a l

cohesion or a decrease i n the use of a l l types of cohesion.

2. Psychopathy i s associated with an increase i n the use of

incompetent references.

3. Psychopathy i s associated with a f a i l u r e to open and close

the same plot-unit.

4. Psychopathy i s associated with p o s i t i v e , but not negative

measures of thought disorder.

These hypotheses were modified by the caveat that, i f

abnormalities i n speech production are a f f e c t i v e l y based i n

psychopaths, then these predictions would be r e a l i z e d for the

a f f e c t i v e , but not the neutral s t o r i e s .

- Method

Subjects

Subjects were 40 male inmates from a Canadian Federal

prison near Vancouver, B.C. who had volunteered to p a r t i c i p a t e

i n an ongoing research project. Psychopathy was assessed using

the PCL-R, a 20 item scale of proven r e l i a b i l i t y and v a l i d i t y

(e.g., Hare, 1980, 1985, 1991; Hare et a l . , 1990). I t measures

-41-

both behavioural and personality variables on the basis of an

extensive interview with the inmate and a review of h i s

i n s t i t u t i o n a l f i l e s . The summed score (maximum of 40) provides

a global measure of psychopathy. The i n t r a c l a s s c o r r e l a t i o n

c o e f f i c i e n t for the PCL-R i n the population from which t h i s

sample was drawn was .84. The interview and ratings were

ca r r i e d out by individuals trained in i t s use (not the

experimenter). When ava i l a b l e the means of double r a t i n g s were

used to increase r e l i a b i l i t y . Past research has demonstrated

that those indiv i d u a l s with low and high PCL-R scores do not

d i f f e r on l e v e l s of education, parents' s o c i a l c l a s s , I.Q. or

other neuropsychological variables (e.g. Hare, F r a z e l l e , Bus, &

J u t a i , 1980; Harpur et. a l . , 1989; Hart, Forth, & Hare, 1990).

In most studies, subjects have been divided into high

(PCL-R 30 or greater) or low (less than or equal to 20 on the

PCL-R) psychopathy groups for comparative research. For the

primary analysis i n the present study, however, psychopathy was

treated as a continuous variable. Some ad d i t i o n a l analyses were

ca r r i e d out using subjects c l a s s i f i e d as psychopaths (PCL-R

score 30 or greater; n = 21) or as nonpsychopaths (PCL-R score

less than 30; n = 15). For a l l analyses, 4 subjects who

received diagnoses of eit h e r schizophrenia or s c h i z o a f f e c t i v e

disorder were omitted as described below.

The i n d i v i d u a l who performed the i n i t i a l PCL-R assessments

re c r u i t e d subjects to par t i c i p a t e in the present research i f

- 4 2 -

they had learned English as their f i r s t language and i f they

were between the ages of 18 and 60. The mean age of the 36

subjects was 29.6 years (S.D. = 9.1; range = 19 to 56 years).

The Mean years of education was 8.9 (S.D. = 1.9; range = 4 to

12) . Neither education nor age was found to c o r r e l a t e with PCL-

R ratings nor any of the dependent variables. The mean PCL-R

score was 29.4 (S.D. = 8.2; range = 7.5 to 40.0).

Procedure

Two s t o r i e s , one involving an angry incident, and one

involving a topic of personal d i f f i c u l t y , were c o l l e c t e d from

the subjects at the beginning of the session. This was followed

by the administration of the SADS-L interview. C o l l e c t i o n of

the speech samples and the administration of the SADS-L

interview were carried out by the author, a Ph.D. l e v e l

c l i n i c a l psychology graduate student, who was b l i n d to PCL-R

ratings. Subjects were paid $7.00 for the session which lasted

from 1 to 2.5 hours. Subjects were tested i n d i v i d u a l l y .

Speech Samples

The subject was asked to produce two types of s t o r i e s that

were to be based on personal experience. This task required a

subject to r e c a l l a time when he was angry and a time when he

had d i f f i c u l t y in doing or learning something. The d i r e c t i v e

f o r the angry ( d i f f i c u l t y ) story was: "I want you to t e l l me a

story about a time you f e l t r e a l l y angry (had d i f f i c u l t y i n

doing or learning something). Like most s t o r i e s , i t should have

- 4 3 -

a beginning, a middle, and an end. T e l l the story as i f you are

there. Describe what happened and what you did. I ' l l give you a

couple of minutes to think about i t . Then I want you to t e l l me

what happened l i k e i t was a story. You should speak f o r a few

minutes. Are there any questions?" The interviewer then

answered any questions that the subject had concerning the

instructions and t o l d him not to talk to the interviewer while

he was t e l l i n g the story. I f a subject asked f o r s p e c i f i c

advice about what to speak about he was encouraged to continue

to t r y to r e c a l l an angry ( d i f f i c u l t ) time. Two subjects (both

nonpsychopaths) could not think of a angry time so they were

asked to speak about a sad incident. Some subjects were not

sure what was meant by the topic " d i f f i c u l t y i n doing or

learning". The experimenter gave the example of " t r y i n g to

figure out a math problem". None of the subjects used t h i s

example i n creating a story. After questions were answered the

interviewer repeated the instructions and the subject began. A

couple of the subjects asked the interviewer questions about

story content af t e r they had begun t h e i r narration. For

example, one subject asked i f someone that he was describing

was known to the interviewer. In these cases the interviewer

responded with "mmm" and the subject continued.

The emotional topic occurred f i r s t or second on a random

basis. There was 20 minutes between each story. A f t e r the

t e l l i n g of each story the experimenter asked questions about

-44 -

i t s content for about 10 minutes. The narratives were recorded

on audio tape with high q u a l i t y head-held microphones.

SADS-L

After c o l l e c t i n g the speech samples the SADS-L structured

interview was administered. The f i r s t 15 to 30 minutes were

spent gathering demographic information from the subject.

General questions about the subject's past p s y c h i a t r i c history

were also asked. The subject was then t o l d that he would be

asked a set of standard questions about how he f e l t and

thought. The interview took from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours and

was videotaped.

Before making RDC diagnoses both the experimenter and the

r e l i a b i l i t y coder reviewed the t r a i n i n g materials provided by

the authors. The r e l i a b i l i t y coder was a M.A. l e v e l graduate

student i n c l i n i c a l psychology who had a great deal of previous

experience i n the administration of structured interviews and

t h e i r scoring. The experimenter had been previously trained i n

the use of the SADS in a p s y c h i a t r i c h o s p i t a l . Both the SADS-L

videotapes and prison f i l e s were used to make diagnoses. The

second rater made diagnoses for a randomly selected set of 20

subjects based on the same information.

Subjects met the c r i t e r i a for a variety of diagnoses.

However, for the present study only the subjects who met the

c r i t e r i a for disorders found to have been related to thought

disorder were of i n t e r e s t . Two subjects met the c r i t e r i a for

-45-

schizoaffective disorder (both depressed type), and two

subjects met the c r i t e r i a for schizophrenia (one paranoid and

one disorganized). These subjects were excluded from the study.

The two subjects who were rated as s c h i z o a f f e c t i v e by the

experimenter were given the same diagnoses by the student. The

two raters also agreed on a past instance of s c h i z o a f f e c t i v e

disorder (depressed type) for one of the subjects. Neither

r a t e r gave any other current diagnosis of schizophrenia,

schizoaffective disorder, mania, or depression. Agreement was

almost perfect on other diagnoses not relevant to the current

study.

One of the two subjects diagnosed as schizophrenic had

been rated i n the psychopathic range on the PCL-R with a score

of 30. The other subjects excluded from the study had PCL-R

scores of 24, 23, and 5.

I t was surprising to f i n d that 10% of the i n i t i a l sample

suffered from serious psychopathology. However, the prison from

which the inmates were drawn was at the time being used to

house the most dangerous and disturbed offenders i n i t s

geographic area. The mean PCL-R score obtained i n the present

study i s i n fact s l i g h t l y higher than has been found i n past

research, as i s the proportion of inmates defined as

psychopathic by the PCL-R. Both the elevated PCL-R scores and

the serious pathology that was found may have been a r e f l e c t i o n

of prison p o l i c y . At the time, offenders were being screened

-46-

upon a r r i v a l at the i n s t i t u t i o n , and the less v i o l e n t and less

dangerous inmates were being sent to other i n s t i t u t i o n s .

Cohesion and Reference Ratings

The experimenter transcribed a l l of the 80 s t o r i e s from

the audio tapes, including pauses and word r e p e t i t i o n s . The

st o r i e s were then broken down into independent clauses based on

the d e f i n i t i o n of Rochester and Martin (1979): an independent

clause i s a unit which stands by i t s e l f as a de c l a r a t i v e ,

interrogative, imperative, or exclamatory structure. Relative

clauses, adverbial clauses, and fact or report complements were

treated as part of t h i s basic unit as were sentence modifiers.

Number of words and number of clauses were counted. Cohesion

and incompetent references were scored according to a manual

that was created for t h i s study based on the book Cohesion i n

English (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) and an unpublished manual

provided by Harvey (1983).

Hanging clauses were included at the beginning of a new

clause. Unless these clauses were necessary for the

interpretation of subsequent information they were not scored

for l i n g u i s t i c variables nor were they included i n the word

count. Repetitions of words within a clause were also not

scored (e.g., "They - they went to the store"; only the second

"they" was coded for l i n g u i s t i c variables and included i n the

word count). A masters l e v e l graduate student from speech and

hearing sciences who was f a m i l i a r with the coding of cohesion,

-47-

but knew nothing about psychopaths, then performed the same

analysis on 30 (15 a f f e c t i v e and 15 neutral) of the 80 s t o r i e s

using the manual provided by the experimenter.

Previous investigators have found the r e l i a b i l i t y for

coding cohesion to be high. Harvey (1983) obtained Kappas of

.79 for l e x i c a l cohesion, .87 for r e f e r e n t i a l cohesion, and .94

fo r conjunction. Ragin and Oltmanns (1986) obtained an

i n t e r r a t e r r e l i a b i l i t y of .95 for the amount of l e x i c a l

cohesion per t r a n s c r i p t . Rochester and Martin (1979) computed

Kappas of .73 to 1.00 for selecting cohesive items and .96 for

se l e c t i n g referents. In the present study i n t e r r a t e r

r e l i a b i l i t y (Pearson product moment correlation) f o r the

neutral (affective) story for number of cohesive t i e s per

t r a n s c r i p t was .81 (.84) f o r l e x i c a l cohesion, .82 (.88) for

r e f e r e n t i a l cohesion, and .92 (.90) for conjunction. For the

i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of incompetent references i t was .91 (.90).

Interrater r e l i a b i l i t y for the number of words and clauses

ranged from .95 to .98 for the a f f e c t i v e and neutral s t o r i e s .

Plot-Unit Ratings

There i s no set of standard plot-units for the analysis of

narratives of r e a l l i f e events. For t h i s reason, p l o t - u n i t s

were selected that had proven useful i n a previous story

structure analysis (Gillam, 1989). In addition, new p l o t - u n i t s

were created based on a subset of the present n a r r a t i v e s . The

author and the same coder who had scored cohesion f o r

-48-

r e l i a b i l i t y j o i n t l y reviewed the 30 narratives (15 a f f e c t i v e

and 15 neutral) that had previously been coded by the second

r a t e r . They i d e n t i f i e d and discussed new p l o t u n i t s , i n

addition to those given i n Gillam (1989), necessary f o r coding

the narratives. The basic unit of analysis was the independent

clause. The p l o t units that were used, both from Gillam (1989)

and newly created, are shown i n Table I I .

A l l of the plot-units were then used by both r a t e r s to

independently analyze 5 s t o r i e s selected from a book of short

s t o r i e s . R e l i a b i l i t y for these ratings was high, and any

discrepancies were discussed by the raters. F i n a l l y , t h i r t y new

narratives from t h i s study were selected ( f i f t e e n a f f e c t i v e and

f i f t e e n neutral s t o r i e s ) , and were coded by both r a t e r s . The

i n t e r r a t e r r e l i a b i l i t y i n the present study for the neutral

(affective) s t o r i e s was .88 (.89) for the i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of

p l o t - u n i t s (the same plot u n i t opened and closed). This value

compares favourably with those reported by Botvin-and Sutton-

Smith (1977), who reported interrater agreement of .81 for the

i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of p l o t - u n i t s using graduate students with three

hours of t r a i n i n g , and by Gillam (1989), who reported an

i n t e r r a t e r r e l i a b i l i t y of .91. Using the same p l o t - u n i t s , the

author then rated the remaining 42 narratives.

Thought Disorder Ratings

The TLC was scored according to the manual provided by i t s

author (Andreasen, 1980) and the revisions proposed by Oltmanns

- 4 9 -

Table II

Plot-units and Their Definitions

Problem Result

Negative Feeling State N u l l i f i e d / n o t N u l l i f i e d

Description of s e l f as having

negative feelings.

V i l l a i n y N u l l i f i e d / n o t N u l l i f i e d

Injurious or malevolent act

committed on the speaker.

Deception Revealed/not revealed

A misleading act or statement

that i s intended to cause a

p a r t i c i p a n t i n the narrative

to act or think wrongly.

Threat N u l l i f i e d / n o t n u l l i f i e d

A p o t e n t i a l source of danger,

harm, or d i s t r e s s .

(table continues)

-50-

Table II continued

Problem Result

Plan

A scheme (thought, intention)

f o r doing something.

Attack

To attack a participant with

intent to harm (can be verbal).

Carried Out/not Carried Out

Counterattack/Wound/Flee

Injury Recovery/Death

Physical harm or damage to

a par t i c i p a n t .

Pursue Capture/Escape/Release

To chase i n order to capture

or harm.

Search Find/not f i n d

To look for something.

(table continues)

-51-

Table II continued

Problem Result

Compete Win/Lose

To compete with another par t i c i p a n t

for something.

Command Obeyed/Not obeyed

To be ordered to do something.

Aid Accepted/Not accepted

To o f f e r aid to a p a r t i c i p a n t .

Promise Kept/Not kept

To promise a p a r t i c i p a n t something.

Problem Resolved/not Resolved

A problem that i s hard for a

participant to contend with.

Note. Adapted from Gillam (1989).

- 5 2 -

et a l . (1985) based on the f i r s t 30 minutes of the SADS-L

interview, with the appropriate correction for time as

instructed i n the manual. Each TLC category i s scored on a 0 to

3 or 4 point scale. In the present study, the experimenter and

a PhD graduate student i n forensic psychology, not involved i n

any of the previous ratings, f i r s t read the manual, and scored

5 t r a i n i n g tapes to discuss discrepancies i n scoring. Then the

experimenter rated a l l the subjects on the TLC and the student

rated 50% of the subjects to assess r e l i a b i l i t y .

T y p i c a l l y , for any category a score of 0 i s considered to be

i n d i c a t i v e of no thought disorder, a score of 1 to be

representative of mild thought disorder, and 2 taken to

indicate the d e f i n i t e presence of thought disorder. Kappa

c o e f f i c i e n t s of agreement for the presence (2 or greater) and

absence (less than 2) of thought disorder for the frequently

occurring categories of t h i s scale are given i n Table I I I . They

range from .58 to .82 and are quite similar to those obtained

by other researchers (e.g. Andreasen, 1979a; Harvey, 1983;

Oltmans et a l . , 1985). For categories having a base-rate of

le s s than 20 percent, Kappas were not calculated; however the

absolute agreement between raters for these categories was high

(at least 95 percent).

Results

Thought Disorder

The thought disorder ratings were highly negatively skewed

- 5 3 -

r e s u l t i n g i n a non-linear relationship with the PCL-R. The

thought disorder ratings were therefore transformed by t h e i r

square root (Cohen & Cohen, 1983) . This produced an

approximately normal d i s t r i b u t i o n for thought disorder and an

approximately linear relationship between thought disorder and

the PCL-R. The PCL-R was found to correlate .35 (p_ < -03) with

the transformed scores. This suggests that increasing

psychopathy i s accompanied by an increased tendency to produce

disordered communications.

R e l i a b i l i t i e s , means, and standard deviations f o r thought

disorder categories, broken down by psychopathy group, are

presented i n Table I I I . Only categories for which at l e a s t one

i n d i v i d u a l scored a 1 are included.

A score of 1 or below on the TLC i s considered to be

i n d i c a t i v e of mild thought disorder or no thought disorder.

Thought disorder appears to have occurred with r e l a t i v e l y

greater frequency among subjects r e l a t i v e to a sample of normal

ind i v i d u a l s assessed by Andreasen and Grove (1986). The

percentage of individuals exhibiting scores of 2 or greater for

that sample and the present sample can be compared i n Table

I I I .

A Chi-Square analysis was performed, with subjects

c l a s s i f i e d by the presence or absence of thought disorder and

by the presence or absence of psychopathy. The analysis was

highly s i g n i f i c a n t (Chi-sguare(1) = 13.02, p < .001). Twenty

-54-

Table III

Summary of Information for Thought Disorder (TD) Categories

Psychopaths Nonpsychopaths

(n = 21) (n = 15)

Category M ( SD ) p a M ( SD ) p a pb Kappa

Poverty of Speech .81 (1.0) 29 .07 ( -3) 0 5 .58

Poverty of Content . 10 ( -3) 0 .07 ( -3) 0 1 -Pressure of Speech .33 ( -9) 14 .00 ( .0) 0 6 -Tangentiality .76 ( .9) 29 .46 ( -9) 13 2 .82

Derailment 1.24 (1.2) 48 .40 ( .6) 17 32 .82 I l l o g i c a l i t y .09 ( .4) 5 .00 ( -0) 0 0 -Incoherence .23 ( -4) 9 . 00 ( .0) 0 0 -D i s t r a c t i b l e Speech . 10 ( -3) 0 .00 ( -0) 0 3 -Circumstantiality 1.20 (1.0) 48 .80 (1.0) 26 6 .78 Loss of Goal 1.29 (1.0) 53 .73 (1.1) 23 18 .80

R e l i a b i l i t y P o s i t i v e TD 2.67 (3.1) 57 1.00 (1.9) 13 .91 Negative TD .81 (1.0) 29 . 13 ( -4) 0 .87

Total TD 6.14 (3.7) 95 2.67 (3.9) 33 .86

(table continues)

-55-

Table III continued

Note. Only categories for which at least one subject scored a

one or more are included. aThe percentage of individuals scoring greater than

2 or greater on the variable. ^The percentage of 94 normal

in d i v i d u a l s scoring 2 or greater on the variable as reported by

Andreasen and Grove (1986).

-56-

out of 21 subjects i n the psychopathic range of the PCL-R were

c l a s s i f i e d as thought disordered, whereas only 5 of the 15

subjects i n the nonpsychopathic range were so c l a s s i f i e d .

Similar analyses were carr i e d out separately f o r p o s i t i v e and

negative thought disorder. Neither positive (r = .16, p > .34)

nor negative (r = .29, p_ > .09) thought disorder c o r r e l a t e d

s i g n i f i c a n t l y with psychopathy. This apparent lack of

rel a t i o n s h i p may have been due to the highly skewed nature of

the thought disorder d i s t r i b u t i o n s that were not amenable to

correction. However, there was a relationship between PCL-R

group and po s i t i v e thought disorder for the Chi-Square

analysis, (Chi-square (1) = 7.07, p_ < .01). The most frequently

occurring categories of p o s i t i v e thought disorder were

derailment and tang e n t i a l i t y . Group differences i n negative

thought disorder were not s i g n i f i c a n t after the Yates

Correction, (Chi-square(1) = 3.29, p > .07), with 6 psychopaths

and none of the nonpsychopaths scoring 2 or greater. A l l of the

6 psychopaths' scores of 2 or greater were due to poverty of

speech and not poverty of content of speech. The mean values

for each group for positive, negative, and t o t a l thought

disorder can be found i n Table III.

Aff e c t Manipulation Check

Whether or not the two story types d i f f e r e d on

emotionality was assessed by two raters, not involved i n any

other ratings, who rated each story on two 7-point Lykert

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scales. One of the raters was a graduate student i n c l i n i c a l

psychology and the other had just completed an undergraduate

degree i n psychology. For the f i r s t scale, ratings were made to

the question "How emotional i s t h i s story?" with scale anchors

of "Extremely" (7) and "Not at a l l " (1). For the second scale,

ratings were made to the question "How much interpersonal

c o n f l i c t i s there i n t h i s story?" with scale anchors of "A l o t "

(7) and "None at a l l " (1). The intra c l a s s c o r r e l a t i o n f o r the

average of two raters was .69 for emotionality and .79 f o r

c o n f l i c t . Paired sample t - t e s t s were carried out on the

resultant mean scores. On the emotionality dimension the two

story types d i f f e r e d (t = 2.59, p < .01; mean f o r the

d i f f i c u l t y story = 3.9, SD = 1.7; mean for the angry story =

4.8, SD = 1.3). The s t o r i e s also d i f f e r e d on the interpersonal

c o n f l i c t dimension (t = 3.99, p < .001; mean f o r the d i f f i c u l t y

story = 3.2, SD = 1.6; mean for the angry story = 4.8, SD =

1.3). These results suggest that the two s t o r i e s d i f f e r e d on

the rated dimension of emotionality; however they may al s o have

d i f f e r e d on other dimensions. In subsequent discussions the

angry story w i l l be referred to as af f e c t i v e and the d i f f i c u l t y

story w i l l be referred to as neutral. However, even though the

"neutral" story was rated as les s emotional then the angry one,

there i s no evidence that i t was not emotional.

Discourse Variables

The Means and S.D.s for t o t a l number of words, t o t a l

- 5 8 -

number of clauses, mean length of utterance (MLU; mean number

of words per independent clause) and open and closed p l o t - u n i t s

for each story type can be found i n Table IV. No s i g n i f i c a n t

differences were found between high and low psychopathy groups

for any of these variables. As can be seen i n Table IV, the

number of clauses and words used was sensitive to whether or

not subjects related a neutral or an a f f e c t i v e story. Subjects

t o l d longer s t o r i e s for the a f f e c t i v e topic; however MLU d i d

not d i f f e r for the two story types. Subjects also produced more

open and closed plot-units for the a f f e c t i v e story suggesting

i t was more complex than the neutral story.

In order to assess the r e l a t i o n s h i p between the dependent

variables and the discourse variables, correlations were

calculated between the two sets of variables f o r a l l subjects.

These correlations are shown i n Table V.

The number of open and closed plot-units was included on

the dependent variable l i s t so as to assess the r e l a t i o n s h i p

between story length and story complexity. The c o r r e l a t i o n s

show that the t o t a l number of clauses was highly r e l a t e d to the

number of open and closed p l o t - u n i t s . This suggests that story

complexity, as assessed by the number of p l o t - u n i t s , was

r e l a t e d to story length. However, story length was not

s i g n i f i c a n t l y associated with the degree to which subjects

opened and closed the same plot- u n i t s , as indicated by the

nonsignificant c o r r e l a t i o n , suggesting that coherence was not

-59-

Table IV

Means and Standard Deviations of the Discourse Variables f o r the A f f e c t i v e and Neutral Stories

Neutral A f f e c t i v e

Story Story

Variable M (SD) M (SD) £(34)

Open Plo t Units 3.94 (1.97) 5. 67 (3.57) 3.18**

Closed Plot Units 2.75 (1.75) 4.36 (2.98) 3.50***

Number of Words 395 (205) 537 (384) 2.75**

Number of Clauses 45 ( 26) 61 ( 46) 2.50*

MLUa 9. 07 (1.73) 9.00 (2.20) .24

a MLU length of utterance which i s the number of words per

independent clause.

* E < .05. * *

p_ < .01.

*** E < .001.

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Table V

Correlations of the Dependent Variables with Total Words, Clauses and MLU for the A f f e c t i v e and Neutral Stories

Variable Total Words Total Clauses MLUa

Neutral Story

L e x i c a l Cohesion .07 .23 . 35*

Referential Cohesion .07 -.01 . 32*

Conjunctive Cohesion -.08 .02 -.01

Total Cohesion .07 -.06 . 35*

Incompetent References .27 * .33 -.12

Closed/Open Plot-units .05 . 05 .02 Open Plo t Units .63*** . 7 2 * * * -.19

Closed Plot Units . 54 .63*** -.15

(table continues)

Table V continued

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Variable Total Words Total Clauses MLUa

A f f e c t i v e Story

Le x i c a l Cohesion .07 .23 .28

Refer e n t i a l Cohesion .07 -.01 .39* Conjunctive Cohesion -.08 . 02 -.02 Total Cohesion .07 -.06 AC**

. 46 Incompetent References . 14 . 12 . 08 Closed/Open plot-units .02 . 05 . 02 Open Pl o t Units .68*** * * *

.82 -.20

Closed P l o t Units .58*** .70*** -.14

Note. Cohesion variables and incompetent references are

occurrences per clause. a Mean length of utterance.

* p < .05.

** p < .01.

-62-

r e l a t e d to story length. MLU was related to t o t a l cohesion for

both story types. Rochester and Martin (1979) demonstrated that

for non-thought disordered individuals the longer the MLU the

greater the number of cohesive t i e s . However, the authors also

found that t h i s relationship did not hold for thought

disordered individuals.

Cohesion

Table VI displays the correlations between the PCL-R and

the dependent variables. These correlations reveal a negative

association between the PCL-R and the cohesion variables f o r

the neutral, but not the a f f e c t i v e , s t o r i e s . This appears to be

due to a general trend for psychopaths to use l e s s cohesion

than the nonpsychopaths i n the neutral story. In the a f f e c t i v e

story the groups used similar amounts of cohesion.

The relationship between psychopathy and the e f f e c t of an

emotional topic on story t e l l i n g was assessed by p a r t i a l i n g the

variance of the neutral story variables out of the c o r r e l a t i o n s

between psychopathy and the a f f e c t i v e dependent variab l e s . The

p a r t i a l correlations between psychopathy and the cohesion

variables for the a f f e c t i v e story, with neutral story variance

removed, are shown in Table VI. None of these c o r r e l a t i o n s were

s i g n i f i c a n t , suggesting that the relationship between

psychopathy and cohesion was not p a r t i c u l a r to an emotional

story t o p i c .

-63-

Table VI

Correlations of the PCL-R with the Dependent Variables for the Neutral and A f f e c t i v e Stories

Neutral A f f e c t i v e A f f e c t i v e Story

Story Story (neutral variance Variable partialed)

Lexical Cohesion -.41** .07 .20

Referential Cohesion -.30 -.20 -.07

Conjunctive Cohesion * -.37 -.01 -.07

Total Cohesion -.47** -.08 .20 Incompetent References . 23 .43** . oo

Closed/Open plot-units A A * *

-. 44 -.40* .29

Note. Cohesion variables and incompetent references are

occurrences per clause.

* p_ < .05. * *

E < .01. * * *

E < -001.

-64-

The Means and S.D.s for the cohesion variables f o r each

a f f e c t type are presented i n Table VII for psychopaths and

nonpsychopaths. Due to the number of t tests that were

performed the Bonferonni correction was used across each story

type. The familywise Type I error rate was held at .05 by

t e s t i n g each comparison at p_ =.008 (.05/6 v a r i a b l e s ) .

Total cohesion was about 2.48 t i e s per clause across the

d i f f e r e n t types of s t o r i e s . This figure compares favorably with

those previously found for interviews and the r e t e l l i n g of a

story j u s t heard, which have ranged from 2.04 to 3.86 i n normal

in d i v i d u a l s (Harvey, 1983; Rochester and Martin, 1979).

Referential and conjunctive cohesion are also i n the same range

as that previously found. Harvey (1983) reports values of .97

for reference and .45 for conjunction i n normals based on an

open top i c interview.

Close i n value to those figures are those found i n the

present study: .88 (neutral story) and .92 ( a f f e c t i v e story)

for reference and .41 (neutral story) and .43 ( a f f e c t i v e story)

for conjunction. What i s d i f f e r e n t from previously reported

values are the figures for l e x i c a l cohesion. For both the

a f f e c t i v e and neutral story r e l a t i v e l y high amounts of l e x i c a l

cohesion were found: 1.18 t i e s per clause for the neutral story

and 1.14 t i e s per clause f o r the a f f e c t i v e story. Harvey (1983)

reported .66 t i e s per clause and Ragin and Oltmanns reported

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Table VII

Means and Standard Deviations of the Dependent Variables for the Affective and Neutral Stories for Psychopaths

and Non-psychopaths

Psychopaths Nonpsychopaths

(n = 21) (n = 15)

Variable M (SD) M (SD) t(34)

Neutral . Story

L e x i c a l Cohesion 1.11 ( -19) 1.29 ( .29) 2.31

Re f e r e n t i a l Cohesion .78 ( -27) 1.01 ( .23) 2.43

Conjunctive Cohesion . 38 ( -09) .43 ( .08) 1.74

Total Cohesion 2.28 ( .43) 2.73 ( . 39) 3. 19*

Incompetent References .08 ( .07) .04 ( .06) 1.69

Closed/Open Plot-units .60 ( .34) •89 ( .20) 2.99*

(table continues)

-66-

Table VII continued

Psychopaths Nonpsychopaths

(n = 21) (n = 15)

Variable M (SD) M (SD) t(34)

Affective s Story

Lex i c a l Cohesion 1.13 ( -28) 1.15 ( .29) . 17

Ref e r e n t i a l Cohesion .84 ( -31) 1.03 ( -22) 2.00

Conjunctive Cohesion .43 ( .15) .43 ( .10) .04

Total Cohesion 2.40 ( -49) 2.61 ( .34) 1.40

Incompetent References . 11 ( -06) .04 ( .06) 2.98*

Closed/Open Plot-units .67 (. -16) .91 ( -16) 3.29*

Note. Cohesion variables and reference f a i l u r e s are occurrences

per clause. The familywise Type I error rate was held at .05 by

te s t i n g each comparison at p_ = .06/6 = .008.

* E < .008.

-67-

.71. However, Rochester and Martin (1979) found that the

proportion of cohesion to t o t a l cohesion i s se n s i t i v e to

context i n that for interviews, where topics were based on past

experience, subjects used l e x i c a l cohesion to a greater degree

than they d i d other types of cohesion. For the r e t e l l i n g of a

story just heard subjects tended to use reference to a greater

degree than other types of cohesion. I t may be that the

p a r t i c u l a r context of the present study led to the p a r t i c u l a r

amounts of cohesion that were found, or i t may be that inmates

tend to use more l e x i c a l cohesion i n t h e i r speech than

noninmates.

Group differences were apparent for t o t a l cohesion i n the

neutral story. Psychopaths used less cohesion over a l l than the

nonpsychopathic group. There were also trends for group

differences on l e x i c a l (p = .03) and r e f e r e n t i a l (p_ = .02)

cohesion. Nonpsychopaths tended to use both types of cohesion

more often than dis psychopaths. For the a f f e c t i v e story, no

group differences were found, although once again there was a

trend for nonpsychopaths to use more r e f e r e n t i a l cohesion than

the psychopaths (p = .05).

Incompetent References

As can be seen i n Table VI, increasing psychopathy was

related to a tendency to make incompetent references. For the

a f f e c t i v e story psychopathy added a s i g n i f i c a n t amount of

variance to t h i s relationship, over and above that contributed

- 6 8 -

by the neutral story.

The mean number of incompetent references for the

a f f e c t i v e and neutral s t o r i e s can be seen i n Table VII. Amounts

of .06 (neutral story) and .08 (a f f e c t i v e story) per clause are

higher than the zero values previously reported for normals

(Harvey, 1983; Rochester & Martin, 1979). In the present study,

psychopaths, when compared to nonpsychopaths, were found to use

more incompetent references for the a f f e c t i v e , but not the

neutral, story. A value of .11 i s f a r above that previously

reported f o r normal individuals, but below .19, a value

reported f o r TD schizophrenics (Harvey & Brault, 1986).

Coherence

Correlations shown in Table VI suggest that increasing

psychopathy was associated with a f a i l u r e i n p l o t - u n i t closure

fo r both the affect i v e and neutral s t o r i e s . As i s shown i n

Table VII, f o r both story types psychopaths produced fewer

completed plot-units than nonpsychopaths, about 65 versus 90

percent. These results suggest that the s t o r i e s produced by

psychopaths were less coherent than those produced by

nonpsychopaths.

Discussion

The most general conclusion that can be drawn from the

res u l t s of t h i s study i s that psychopathy i s associated with a

tendency to produce disordered communications. These

communications appear to f a i l on a number of l e v e l s . F i r s t ,

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psychopathy i s associated with the use of few cohesive l i n k s

between sentences. Secondly, psychopaths sometimes f a i l to

provide the appropriate referent for what they are t a l k i n g

about. T h i r d l y , they frequently introduce information that sets

up expectations i n li s t e n e r s about what they might hear next,

and then f a i l to provide that piece of information. F i n a l l y ,

psychopathy appears to be related to c l i n i c a l l y - r a t e d d e f i c i t s

i n communication, as measured by the TLC.

The l e v e l of impaired communication found i n the

psychopathic subjects was somewhat unexpected. I t was thought

that psychopaths would score higher than nonpsychopaths on

p o s i t i v e thought disorder. This would be consistent with the

c l i n i c a l observation that t h e i r speech tends to s l i p o f f track.

The f i n d i n g that almost 30 percent of the psychopaths exhibited

negative formal thought disorder, and that t h i s was due to

poverty of speech and not poverty of content of speech, was

su r p r i s i n g . Poverty of content of speech might have been

expected, based on the c l i n i c a l impression that psychopaths

speak a l o t but impart l i t t l e information. That they exhibited

poverty of speech could be an a r t i f a c t of prison l i f e , i n that

an inmate often does not discuss or divulge personal

information. Alternatively, i t could be representative of more

serious pathology. Andreasen and Grove (1986) found that

negative thought disorder was associated with more long term

impairment i n functioning than was p o s i t i v e thought disorder.

- 7 0 -

Negative thought disorder also appears to be a stable t r a i t of

schizophrenia, whereas posi t i v e thought disorder does not

(Docherty et a l . , 1988).

A l l but one of the psychopaths in the present study

exhibited a s i g n i f i c a n t amount of disorganized communication as

measured by the TLC. This needs to be reconciled with some of

the previous c l i n i c a l descriptions of psychopathy, and with the

c l i n i c a l presentation of other thought disordered groups.

Psychopaths have been described both as g l i b con a r t i s t s

who can t a l k almost anyone into anything, and as i n d i v i d u a l s

who produce poorly connected speech units . The findings of the

present study would seem to support the l a t t e r . Reduced

communicability, as measured by the TLC, was higher i n

psychopaths than in nonpsychopaths. It i s possible that the

pattern of the subcategories of thought disorder found f o r

psychopaths may d i f f e r from that found for other p s y c h i a t r i c

groups. For t h i s reason, psychopathic speech may communicate

more information than that of, say, schizophrenics.

A l t e r n a t i v e l y , i t could be that Hare's recent observations

concerning psychopathic speech are correct. Rather than being

the g l i b con a r t i s t s that they are commonly portrayed as, i t

may simply be that t h e i r lack of s o c i a l anxiety coupled with a

desire to be dominant in most s o c i a l s i t u a t i o n s makes them

i n i t i a l l y a t t r a c t i v e to others. This would allow them to take

advantage of some of the people some of the time, even i f , , i n

-71-

r e a l i t y , t h e i r a b i l i t y to communicate ve r b a l l y i s somewhat

impaired.

In the present study s p e c i f i c patterns of thought

disorder, other than positive and negative, were not

investigated. I t was predicted that psychopathy would be

associated with positive signs, which i t was. The frequency of

derailment and tangentiality that was found i n the speech of

psychopaths would suggest that they frequently s l i p o f f top i c

when they are speaking, and that they often f a i l to answer

d i r e c t questions. Psychopaths exhibiting p o s i t i v e thought

disorder might be expected to produce speech that i s poorly

connected, but fluent. For the neutral story they did produce

speech that was lower in cohesion than that of nonpsychopaths.

They also produced fewer completed plo t - u n i t s for both story

types. Both of these findings are i n d i c a t i v e of a r e l a t i v e l y

high l e v e l of unconnected discourse i n psychopaths.

However, fluent speech that changes topic quickly may not

always sound strange to l i s t e n e r s ; without changes i n t o p i c ,

speech would become very boring. Schizophrenics or manics

presenting with s i g n i f i c a n t thought disorder are usually

immediately i d e n t i f i a b l e , without the aid of a c l i n i c a l r a t i n g

scale. Psychopaths are not generally recognized as thought

disordered. One possible reason for t h i s discrepancy i s that

there may be differences i n the content of speech when

comparing psychopaths and other thought disordered groups. The

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TLC focuses on the form of speech and not i t s content. Often,

both the form and content of schizophrenic speech are odd and

bizarre. Idiosyncratic speech i s common i n thought disordered

schizophrenics (Harrow et a l . , 1982). In psychopaths t h i s has

not been observed. If a psychopath r e p l i e s tangentially but

without strange content to a speaker's question, the speaker

may simply assume that individual i s evasive or g l i b . Consider

the following two responses to the question, "Do your moods go

up and down?"

1. "I'm ju s t such a - uh - believer that - uh - that l i f e

i s so short and that we're here for such a short time and

so - so we're a l l going to die anyways at one stage so

then - uh - you - we pass on into a t o t a l l y new s t r a t a and

a l l the problems of t h i s world for us are solved and then

we have a new set of problems and a new set of joys -

whichever one - uh - i t s not something I claim to

understand".

2. "Uh - up and down ? - well you know - some people worry

and I don't worry about much".

Both responses are tangential r e p l i e s to the question.

However, the second response, which was made by a psychopath,

would probably pass without comment i n a regular conversation,

despite the f a c t that i t f a i l s to answer the question. The

f i r s t response was produced by an i n d i v i d u a l that was excluded

from the present study due to an RDC diagnosis of

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schizophrenia. His checklist score was i n the nonpsychopathic

range. His response was not only tangential but contained

somewhat overly abstract,if not strange content. Most l i s t e n e r s

would immediately be aware that there i s something odd about

t h i s i n d i v i d u a l ' s speech and also would f i n d i t d i f f i c u l t to

understand. I t i s possible that although the form of

psychopaths' speech would be considered to be i n d i c a t i v e of

some type of communication disorder, i t s content i s ordinary

enough that l i s t e n e r s can e a s i l y i n f e r a meaning. Future

research might focus more on l i s t e n e r s and how i t i s that they

i n f e r meanings from the speech of psychopaths. For instance,

psychopaths may not produce unusual content i n t h e i r speech,

but instead exhibit d e f i c i t s i n the form of t h e i r discourse. I t

i s possible that i t i s easier for a l i s t e n e r to i n f e r what an

i n d i v i d u a l means i f form, rather than content, i s impaired.

Rosenberg and Tucker (1979) found that the content of

schizophrenic speech was d i s t i n c t from that of nonpsychiatric

patients. The authors suggested that schizophrenics v i o l a t e the

semantic baselines established by members of a language

community. These violations do not have to be i n the form of

bizarre content, but merely involve deviations from expected

sex and s o c i a l roles (e.g. age or f a m i l i a r i t y ) . These types of

deviations are related to the previously discussed concept of

r e g i s t e r . In the present study there was no indication that any

of the subjects f a i l e d to take into account the topic of the

- 7 4 -

story or, more generally, that they were to t e l l a story.

Neither did the raters of the story t r a n s c r i p t s encounter

bizarre or strange content. However they did sometimes

encounter information that seemed confused or did not make

sense. Consider the following story about being angry:

"My most emotional experience was - uh - one of them - the

most cl e a r e s t one was i n here when I was the - i n the

middle of l i f e s k i l l class when somebody pushed the panic

button by accident - I never had on a white t e e - s h i r t - I

had a blue tee-shirt on - And - uh - they pulled me out

there and centred me out i n front of c l - c l o - the crowd

- Cause they had no r e a l reason to take anybody away -

Because i t was by accident - So they decided to centre me

out - Because the copper i n M9 didn't say that he didn't

l i k e me - And he gave me a hassle - And said to centre me

out - And made me go back to the u n i t and change -I didn't

say anything - He was doing a l l the t a l k i n g - He asked me

why I didn't have a blue t e e - s h i r t on - I answered h i s

question by saying that a l l my white t e e - s h i r t s were i n

the wash - He said "well go to SIS" - "And grab a green

s h i r t then" - I said why" - "I'm already here" - "This -

the c l a s s i s almost over" - And - uh - he said "too bad" -

"Go back and do i t " in front of about 25 guys" (the panic

button i s pushed when a guard i s i n trouble; SIS i s

stores) .

- 7 5 -

Th i s story, the shortest produced, was t o l d by a

psychopath who scored in the moderate range on poverty of

speech and al s o exhibited derailment and loss of goal. This

i n d i v i d u a l ' s confusion over t e e - s h i r t colours i s obvious. He

also seemed to have d i f f i c u l t y i n producing a story with a

clea r beginning and end. His i n t e r j e c t i o n of information

concerning t e e - s h i r t s before i t was relevant suggests that he

may have had d i f f i c u l t y in either organizing the information

into a coherent account or that he f a i l e d to take into account

the l i s t e n e r ' s needs.

Bernstein (1966) has made a d i s t i n c t i o n between

elaborated and r e s t r i c t e d speech codes. Restricted speech

codes are those found among c u l t u r a l groups and the intent of

the speaker i s conveyed not through verbal selections, but

through changes i n gesture, physical set, and other such

devices. When using a r e s t r i c t e d code, speech sequences are

disju n c t i v e and concrete; propositions may not be f u l l y

developed and gaps in logic can be present; meanings are

discontinuous, but lis t e n e r s are able to i n f e r what the

speaker means by attending to extraverbal channels. This type

of speech i s often used between people who know each other

well.

Elaborate speech codes r e l y on the s e l f - e d i t i n g of

information so that i t takes into account the speaker's r o l e

i n a communication. The preparation and imparting of e x p l i c i t

\ - 7 6 -

information i s the major purpose of the elaborated code. I t i s

possible that some subjects i n the present study produced

s t o r i e s i n r e s t r i c t e d code form, perhaps that belonging to

prison inmates. This would mean that the l i s t e n e r would have

to make inferences about meanings based on information that i s

c u l t u r a l l y foreign, since the speaker has f a i l e d to be

sen s i t i v e to the register of the s i t u a t i o n . If t h i s were so,

the story quoted above would make more sense to another inmate

than i t did to the raters. This argument could be used to

suggest that psychopaths are somehow in s e n s i t i v e to a

l i s t e n e r ' s needs and therefore produce r e l a t i v e l y unconnected

restricted-code speech regardless of the s o c i a l context. This

would allow a psychopath to communicate with those i n a

si m i l a r c u l t u r a l group without having to produce e x p l i c i t

meanings. However, communication with those outside t h i s

c u l t u r a l group would be impaired.

In the present experiment, psychopathy was associated

with a f a i l u r e to present story information that was coherent.

Psychopaths presented information to open a pl o t - u n i t , and

then d i d not include enough additional information i n

subsequent discourse to l e t the l i s t e n e r know what happened.

This suggests that expectancies were set up i n the l i s t e n e r to

which the speaker was insensitive. I t also suggests that

psychopathy was associated with a f a i l u r e to l i n k actions and

resolutions within t h e i r narratives. This would make i t

- 7 7 -

d i f f i c u l t for the listener to understand what the speaker i s

t r y i n g to say.

Black and Reiser (1982) , i n t h e i r discussion of the

s t r u c t u r a l models of comprehension, have suggested" that a

model of text comprehension should explicate how knowledge

structures are used to guide the r e t r i e v a l of information from

a representation. They suggested that p l o t - u n i t s are useful i n

understanding a story because they allow the l i s t e n e r to

predict future story events. For example, i f a competition

p l o t - u n i t i s i d e n t i f i e d , then the l i s t e n e r can i n f e r and

expect that someone w i l l win and someone w i l l lose, based on

previous knowledge structures.

Black and Reiser (1982) also suggested that p l o t - u n i t

constituents have another function i n text comprehension. They

f a c i l i t a t e the r e c a l l of information. For example, an

in d i v i d u a l may r e c a l l that there was a competition i n a story.

In r e t r i e v i n g information about the competition, a strong

expectation w i l l be set up as to the competition outcome.

Additionally, the information i n other p l o t - u n i t s may become

activated. I f an individual remembers that someone won the

competition, then the expectancy for a rematch may be set up

and memory may be searched for such information. In t h i s way,

memory r e t r i e v a l from a representation begins with knowledge

structures that organize information. In psychopaths i t i s

possible that there i s some breakdown i n t h i s process, whereby

- 7 8 -

assessing one part of a plot-unit does not lead to the

a c t i v a t i o n of i t s corresponding constituent, or related p l o t -

u n i t s . I t i s also possible that the knowledge structures

themselves could be faulty, whereby the p l o t - u n i t based

expectations that psychopaths have are somehow d i f f e r e n t than

those of other individuals.

In the present study, t o t a l cohesion, l e x i c a l cohesion,

and conjunctive cohesion i n the neutral story decreased as

psychopathy increased. This was i n accordance with the

p r e d i c t i o n that psychopaths would use l i t t l e cohesion o v e r a l l .

I t suggests that the independent clauses i n the texts of

psychopaths are not as well-linked as those of nonpsychopaths.

For the a f f e c t i v e story t h i s r e l a t i o n s h i p did not hold.

Although i t appeared that cohesion measures were topi c

s e n s i t i v e i n t h e i r relationship to psychopathy, the actual

r e l a t i o n s h i p seems to be one where both groups changed l e v e l s

of cohesion across the two s t o r i e s , with the psychopaths

s l i g h t l y increasing and the nonpsychopaths s l i g h t l y decreasing

cohesion l e v e l s . This resulted i n no r e l a t i o n s h i p with the

PCL-R for l e x i c a l cohesion i n the a f f e c t i v e story. The f i n d i n g

that cohesion measures may be sensitive to t o p i c should be

useful knowledge for future studies of text cohesion.

Perhaps the most interesting finding i n the present study

was that psychopaths have a tendency to produce incompetent

references. This tendency did not d i s t i n g u i s h psychopaths from

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nonpsychopaths i n the neutral story, but i t did i n the

a f f e c t i v e story. Subjects tended to produce longer s t o r i e s ,

with more p l o t - u n i t s , in the a f f e c t i v e s t o r i e s than i n the

neutral ones. I t i s possible that the increased l i n g u i s t i c

processing demands required to produce the longer and more

complex s t o r i e s , and to integrate more p l o t - u n i t s , resulted i n

less resources being available for the e d i t i n g of

inappropriate references. Cohen (1978) has demonstrated that

reference f a i l u r e s increase i n normals, and to a larger extent

in schizophrenics, as the task of communicating a referent

becomes more d i f f i c u l t . Within the context of an emotional

story, the task of communicating may have been more d i f f i c u l t

for psychopaths than for nonpsychopaths.

After reviewing the l i t e r a t u r e covering information

processing and attentional functioning i n the developmental

course of schizophrenic disorders, Nuechterlein and Dawson

(1984) suggested that r e f e r e n t i a l communication d e f i c i t s

(among others) are l i k e l y to be the r e s u l t of a reduction i n

the processing capacity that i s available f o r task-relevant

cognitive operation i n persons vulnerable to schizophrenia. In

fact, the authors suggested that r e f e r e n t i a l communication

d e f i c i t s may represent a v u l n e r a b i l i t y factor for

schizophrenic disorders. Perhaps i n thought disordered

schizophrenics a genetic predisposition operates (Harvey et

a l , 1988) to l i m i t language-based resources. A similar

-80-

mechanism might underlie psychopaths' reference f a i l u r e s . Hare

et a l . (1988), have suggested that the resources for

processing language may be limited i n psychopaths.

Hare and Gillstrom (1990) have suggested that psychopaths

may produce short and poorly integrated sentences. In the

present study, psychopathy was not associated with the MLU, or

the number of clauses and words produced. This would suggest

that psychopaths do not produce shorter utterances, or

sentences, at l e a s t when t e l l i n g a story, but only that the

utterances they do produce are poorly connected.

There are a number of limitations to generalization of

the findings of the present study. The f i r s t has to do with

r e g i s t e r . In t h i s study subjects were asked to produce a

monologue i n story form. This form of communication i s much

d i f f e r e n t than, say, a two-way dialogue, or g i v i n g a prepared

speech. I t i s not known i f the results obtained here would be

reproduced across di f f e r e n t contexts and tasks. The r e l a t i v e

proportions of the di f f e r e n t cohesion v a r i a b l e s to t o t a l

cohesion are s e n s i t i v e to task (Rochester & Martin, 1979), and

task complexity may affect the degree to which individuals

produce unclear references (Cohen, 1978).

A second l i m i t a t i o n has to do with the basic unit of the

analysis. There were only about f i f t y clauses per story on

which to base the present conclusions. This represents only a

few minutes of speech. Although the e f f e c t s found i n these

-81-

samples were f a i r l y strong, the degree to which they would

generalize to other stories and subjects i s not clear.

Another l i m i t a t i o n of the current study has to do with

how b l i n d the raters were concerning group membership. A l l of

the r e l i a b i l i t y raters, except for the i n d i v i d u a l who scored

cohesion and coherence and the two i n d i v i d u a l s who scored

story a f f e c t i v i t y , had previously interviewed psychopaths.

This may or may not have had an e f f e c t on t h e i r ratings.

Another d i f f i c u l t y with interpreting the present r e s u l t s

i s that thought disorder ratings were made on conversational

speech patterns, whereas the dependent measures were derived

from a story monologue. Some authors have i d e n t i f i e d s p e c i f i c

passages of disordered speech for which cohesion and reference

ratings were performed (Harvey, 1983). These passages

contained s i g n i f i c a n t l y more incompetent references than did

samples of non-disordered passages. In the present study the

relati o n s h i p between psychopathy and the reference measures,

and between psychopathy and thought disorder, might have been

better c l a r i f i e d by looking s p e c i f i c a l l y at disordered speech

samples.

The coding of cohesion and reference f a i l u r e s i s a f a i r l y

straightforward enterprise. However, to capture a l l of the

information contained in a story, measures a d d i t i o n a l to p l o t -

units should be used. Information about s e t t i n g , characters,

and time could be included. Single-meaning constituents can be

-82-

used to assess information concerning actions (e.g.,

reactions, a c t i v i t i e s , announcements, narrator elaborations),

and contextual constituents (e.g., location, contextual

events, time) can be used to assess story background (Gillam,

1989). Future research might examine the degree to which these

other aspects of psychopaths' s t o r i e s deviate from those of

nonpsychopaths. For instance, meaning may be e a s i l y derivable

from psychopaths' s t o r i e s because the stoies include large

amounts of t h i s extra information. A d d i t i o n a l l y , the

s t r u c t u r a l complexity of psychopaths' s t o r i e s could be

evaluated by examining the relationships among pl o t - u n i t s

within a story (Botvin & Sutton-Smith, 1977).

F i n a l l y , the nature of the sample i n the present study

was somewhat d i f f e r e n t from that found i n other studies of

criminals. I t was not expected that four subjects would be

l o s t due to severe psychopathology. The sample was also

s l i g h t l y unusual i n the number of psychopaths i t contained.

Usually they form about a t h i r d of most volunteer samples i n a

prison population. As suggested above, the p o l i c y i n the

prison at the time the sample was c o l l e c t e d may have affected

i t s composition.

Despite these caveats, the present r e s u l t s s t i l l suggest

that a s i g n i f i c a n t number of psychopaths produce disordered

communications. Psychopathy was associated with the use of

r e l a t i v e l y few cohesive links between sentences, f a i l u r e to

- 8 3 -

provide appropriate referents in discourse, f a i l u r e to l i n k

actions and resolutions in stories, and a s i g n i f i c a n t c l i n i c a l

impairment i n the a b i l i t y to communicate. Generally, these

re s u l t s suggest that e f f e c t i v e connections among speech units

in psychopaths' discourse are not as numerous as those found

i n nonpsychopaths. In addition, psychopaths l i k e l y suffer from

a more general impairment in communication, r e l a t e d to, among

other things, discourse that has a tendency to s l i p o f f track

and that often f a i l s to d i r e c t l y answer a l i s t e n e r ' s

questions.

The r e l a t i o n s h i p between the communication d e f i c i t s

exhibited by psychopaths and other psychopathological groups

may be of in t e r e s t to future investigators. Whether or not

these d e f i c i t s share a common developmental h i s t o r y , or

underlying mechanism, may be of some importance to those

researchers engaged i n the task of looking f o r markers of

mental disorders. Future research on psychopaths might also

investigate the rel a t i o n s h i p between d e f i c i t s i n language

processing and production; a d e f i c i t i n one does not

necessarily explain a d e f i c i t in the other.

-84-

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