Emotion Processing in the Criminal Psychopath: the Role of Attention in Emotion-facilitated Memory

Overview

Journal J Abnorm Psychol

Publisher American Psychological Association

Specialty Psychology

Date 2009 Feb 19

PMID 19222329

Citations 9

Authors

Samantha J Glass

Joseph P Newman

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The response modulation hypothesis specifies that low-anxious psychopathic individuals have difficulty processing information outside their primary attentional focus. To evaluate the applicability of this model to affective processing, the authors had 239 offenders, classified with the Psychopathy Checklist--Revised (R. D. Hare, 2003) and the Welsh Anxiety Scale (G. Welsh, 1956), perform 1 of 3 emotion memory tasks that examined the effects of emotion on memory for primary and contextual information. Regardless of anxiety level, psychopathic and control offenders demonstrated a significant and comparable memory bias for emotional over neutral words in the primary conditions. However, psychopathic individuals showed significantly less memory bias than did controls in the contextual conditions. Results indicate that the impact of emotion on memory is moderated by attentional factors.

Citing Articles

Highly Structured Treatment Programs for Addicted Offenders: Comparing the Effects of the Reasoning & Rehabilitation Program and DBT-F.

Wettermann A, Vollm B, Schlafke D Front Psychiatry. 2020; 11:499241.

PMID: 33281634 PMC: 7691237. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.499241.

Preliminary efficacy and mediators of interpersonal psychotherapy for reducing posttraumatic stress symptoms in an incarcerated population.

Felton J, Hailemariam M, Richie F, Reddy M, Edukere S, Zlotnick C Psychother Res. 2019; 30(2):239-250.

PMID: 30857489 PMC: 6739190. DOI: 10.1080/10503307.2019.1587192.

What Drives False Memories in Psychopathology? A Case for Associative Activation.

Otgaar H, Muris P, Howe M, Merckelbach H Clin Psychol Sci. 2017; 5(6):1048-1069.

PMID: 29170722 PMC: 5665161. DOI: 10.1177/2167702617724424.

Altering the Cognitive-Affective Dysfunctions of Psychopathic and Externalizing Offender Subtypes with Cognitive Remediation.

Baskin-Sommers A, Curtin J, Newman J Clin Psychol Sci. 2015; 3(1):45-57.

PMID: 25977843 PMC: 4426343. DOI: 10.1177/2167702614560744.

Altered resting-state functional connectivity in cortical networks in psychopathy.

Philippi C, Pujara M, Motzkin J, Newman J, Kiehl K, Koenigs M J Neurosci. 2015; 35(15):6068-78.

PMID: 25878280 PMC: 4397604. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5010-14.2015.

References

Fowles D . The three arousal model: implications of gray's two-factor learning theory for heart rate, electrodermal activity, and psychopathy. Psychophysiology. 1980; 17(2):87-104. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1980.tb00117.x. View

Doerksen S, Shimamura A . Source memory enhancement for emotional words. Emotion. 2003; 1(1):5-11. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.1.1.5. View

Dolan R . Emotion, cognition, and behavior. Science. 2002; 298(5596):1191-4. DOI: 10.1126/science.1076358. View

Patterson C, Newman J . Reflectivity and learning from aversive events: toward a psychological mechanism for the syndromes of disinhibition. Psychol Rev. 1993; 100(4):716-36. DOI: 10.1037/0033-295x.100.4.716. View

Gorenstein E, Newman J . Disinhibitory psychopathology: a new perspective and a model for research. Psychol Rev. 1980; 87(3):301-15. View

Alvarez R, Biggs A, Chen G, Pine D, Grillon C . Contextual fear conditioning in humans: cortical-hippocampal and amygdala contributions. J Neurosci. 2008; 28(24):6211-9. PMC: 2475649. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1246-08.2008. View

Blair R . Applying a cognitive neuroscience perspective to the disorder of psychopathy. Dev Psychopathol. 2005; 17(3):865-91. DOI: 10.1017/S0954579405050418. View

Kiehl K, Smith A, Hare R, Mendrek A, Forster B, Brink J . Limbic abnormalities in affective processing by criminal psychopaths as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Biol Psychiatry. 2001; 50(9):677-84. DOI: 10.1016/s0006-3223(01)01222-7. View

DArgembeau A, Van der Linden M . Influence of affective meaning on memory for contextual information. Emotion. 2004; 4(2):173-88. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.4.2.173. View

10.

Newman J, Kosson D . Passive avoidance learning in psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders. J Abnorm Psychol. 1986; 95(3):252-6. View

11.

Lorenz A, Newman J . Deficient response modulation and emotion processing in low-anxious Caucasian psychopathic offenders: results from a lexical decision task. Emotion. 2003; 2(2):91-104. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.2.2.91. View

12.

Ross R, Slotnick S . The hippocampus is preferentially associated with memory for spatial context. J Cogn Neurosci. 2007; 20(3):432-46. DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20035. View

13.

Kensinger E, Corkin S . Memory enhancement for emotional words: are emotional words more vividly remembered than neutral words?. Mem Cognit. 2004; 31(8):1169-80. DOI: 10.3758/bf03195800. View

14.

Davachi L, Mitchell J, Wagner A . Multiple routes to memory: distinct medial temporal lobe processes build item and source memories. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003; 100(4):2157-62. PMC: 149975. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0337195100. View

15.

Flor H, Birbaumer N, Hermann C, Ziegler S, Patrick C . Aversive Pavlovian conditioning in psychopaths: peripheral and central correlates. Psychophysiology. 2002; 39(4):505-18. DOI: 10.1017.S0048577202394046. View

16.

Arnett P, Smith S, Newman J . Approach and avoidance motivation in psychopathic criminal offenders during passive avoidance. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1997; 72(6):1413-28. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.72.6.1413. View