Clinicians have long noted that individuals with high psychopathic traits exhibit unique interpersonal style often observable during forensic interviews. Here we develop an automated approach for quantifying head dynamics during video-recorded naturalistic clinical interviews. We expected head dynamics would be related to psychopathic traits. As predicted, dwell times indicate that those with higher levels of psychopathic traits are characterized by more stationary head positions, focused directly towards the camera/interviewer, than were individuals low in psychopathic traits. These associations were primarily driven by developmental/antisocial features of psychopathy, indicating that those with severe and life-course persistent antisocial behavior exhibit more rigid and focused orienting of their head during interpersonal communication. These results encourage more research into the automated quantification of behavioral manifestations of personality to support clinical observations that psychopaths exhibit unique qualities in non-verbal interpersonal communication.

临床医生长期以来一直指出，具有高度精神病特征的人表现出独特的人际交往风格，通常在法医访谈中可以观察到。在这里，我们开发了一种自动方法，用于在视频录制的自然主义临床访谈中量化头部动态。我们预计头部动态将与精神病性状有关。如所预测的，停留时间表明，与那些精神病性状低的人相比，精神病性状水平较高的人的特点是头部位置更加固定，直接对准摄像头/采访者。这些关联主要是由心理疾病的发展/反社会特征驱动的，表明那些具有严重和终生持续性反社会行为的人在人际交往中表现出更僵硬和集中的朝向。