Abstract
Three hypotheses for cognitive deficits among psychopaths were tested: executive dysfunction, left hemisphere activation, and an interaction between the two. Twenty-one psychopathic and 23 nonpsychopathic criminal offenders identified with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised participated in verbal and visual-spatial tasks during which the level of executive processing demands was manipulated. Consistent with prior research, psychopathic offenders made more errors than controls, but only during the verbal task and only on trials with high executive demand. Within those trials, most errors occurred when set-maintenance demands were the highest. No response latency differences between groups were found.
Publication types
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Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
MeSH terms
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Adolescent
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Adult
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Antisocial Personality Disorder / diagnosis
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Antisocial Personality Disorder / epidemiology*
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Antisocial Personality Disorder / physiopathology*
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Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / epidemiology*
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Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / physiopathology*
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Brain / physiopathology*
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Cognition Disorders / diagnosis
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Cognition Disorders / epidemiology*
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Cognition Disorders / physiopathology*
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Functional Laterality / physiology*
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Humans
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Male
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Middle Aged
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Neuropsychological Tests
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Nonverbal Communication*
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Perceptual Disorders / epidemiology
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Perceptual Disorders / physiopathology
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Prisoners / psychology
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Prisoners / statistics & numerical data
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Severity of Illness Index
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Surveys and Questionnaires
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Verbal Behavior*