Vocally-Encoded Emotional Arousal as a Marker of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a Sample of Justice-Involved Adolescents.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with severe and persistent juvenile offending. CU traits are also associated with dampened emotional arousal, which suggests that fundamental frequency (f₀), a measure of vocally-encoded emotional arousal, may serve as an accessible psychophysiological marker of CU traits in youth. This study investigated the associations between f₀ range measured during an emotionally evocative task, CU traits, and emotion dysregulation in a mixed-gender sample of 168 justice-involved youth. For boys, after controlling for covariates, wider f₀ range-indicating greater emotional arousal-was negatively associated with CU traits and positively associated with emotion dysregulation. For girls, no significant associations with f₀ range emerged; however, CU traits were positively associated with emotion dysregulation. Findings suggest that f₀ range may serve as a valid indicator of CU traits in JJ-involved boys, and that detained boys and girls with high CU traits are characterized by different profiles of emotion dysregulation.