Psychopathic women have a special trait

The absence of a woman's head movement during a conversation would be one of the effective indicators to determine whether she is mentally ill, according to researchers at the University of New Mexico.

“Nonverbal behaviors, such as head dynamics, represent an important but understudied form of communication that may improve our ability to detect certain forms of psychopathology, including psychopathy,” the University of New Mexico study authors said.

213 women recruited from a medium security correctional facility in the United States participated in the study. Their ages range from 21 to 57 years. Data were collected between 2009 and 2019.

The researchers photographed the study participants. They analyzed head position during each sequence to classify head movement into three categories: minimal, moderate, and extreme.

Using a detection algorithm, the research team determined that women who kept their heads completely still or with “minimal movement” during a conversation had high levels of psychopathic tendencies.

“Head position was assessed frame by frame during the interviews,” the authors explained. The average head position was calculated using information from all extracted images.

Researchers have defined psychopathic traits as a combination of personality dysfunctions, such as manipulation, pathological lying, callousness, lack of remorse, impulsivity, irresponsibility, and the criminal variety.