Executive cognitive functioning and the recognition of facial expressions of emotion in incarcerated violent offenders, non‐violent offenders, and controls

Abstract

Violence is a social problem that carries enormous costs; however, our understanding of its etiology is quite limited. A large body of research exists, which suggests a relationship between abnormalities of the frontal lobe and aggression; as a result, many researchers have implicated deficits in so-called "executive function" as an antecedent to aggressive behaviour. Another possibility is that violence may be related to problems interpreting facial expressions of emotion, a deficit associated with many forms of psychopathology, and an ability linked to the prefrontal cortex. The current study investigated performance on measures of executive function and on a facial-affect recognition task in 20 violent offenders, 20 non-violent offenders, and 20 controls. In support of our hypotheses, both offender groups performed significantly more poorly on measures of executive function relative to controls. In addition, violent offenders were significantly poorer on the facial-affect recognition task than either of the other two groups. Interestingly, scores on these measures were significantly correlated, with executive deficits associated with difficulties accurately interpreting facial affect. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of a broader understanding of violent behaviour.

The neurocognition of conduct disorder behaviors: specificity to physical aggression and theft after controlling for ADHD symptoms

“…For example, two studies found specific relations of neurocognitive function with aggressive but not with nonaggressive conduct problems [Giancola et al, 1998;Hancock et al, 2010], whereas two other studies failed to find such a distinction [Baker and Ireland, 2007;Hoaken et al, 2007]. One potential explanation for this discrepancy is the aggregation of different types of nonaggressive conduct problems, which assumes that each type of nonaggressive misbehavior is equally linked to neurocognitive function.…”

Emotion recognition in pictures of facial affect: Is there a difference between forensic and non-forensic patients with schizophrenia?

“…Conversely, aggressive responses seem to be suppressed in healthy individuals when recognizing fear in others 19 . Consistent with this explanation, Hoaken et al 18 found that non-clinical violent offenders were significantly worse in facial affect recognition compared to non-violent offenders and controls, and that emotion recognition correlated with executive functioning abilities including associative learning, strategy formulation as well as working memory 18 .…”

“…In any event, false interpretation of facial affect may lead to inappropriate social behavior, including impulsive aggression even in innocuous social situations 18 . Conversely, aggressive responses seem to be suppressed in healthy individuals when recognizing fear in others 19 .…”

Using basic neurobiological measures in criminological research

“…For example, inmates with high psychopathic traits appear to show more selective attention problems, compared to non-psychopathic inmates (Hiatt et al 2004;Pham et al 2003). Hoaken et al (2007) demonstrated that incarcerated violent offenders performed significantly more poorly at a cognitive empathy task, compared to non-violent offenders. Furthermore, Broomhall (2005) showed impaired complex prefrontal functioning in offenders with reactive aggression and largely intact functions in offenders with primarily instrumental aggression.…”