Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (School of Communication) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Researchers studying forensic psychopathology have been searching for biological explanations for the socially costly and puzzling disorder, psychopathy. This dissertation attempts to replicate and expand upon previous findings that psychopaths have unusually lateralized brains. In the first of two studies, 12 psychopathic and 12 nonpsychopathic incarcerated men completed three verbal tasks chosen to capitalize on lateralized cognition. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during the tasks to approximate magnitude, location, and timing of cortical activation. In Study 2, participants completed four nonverbal tasks. Overall patterns of lateralized performance and electrocortical activity suggest that psychopaths use unusual strategies and/or brain areas to process information with no apparent decrements in performance. It appears that psychopaths have diffusely organized brains for a wide variety of cognitions, rendering them incapable of integrating emotional and verbal information. As a result, they may be unable to follow social norms or develop meaningful relationships with others, while appearing intellectually normal.

Researchers studying forensic psychopathology have been searching for biological explanations for the socially costly and puzzling disorder, psychopathy. This dissertation attempts to replicate and expand upon previous findings that psychopaths have unusually lateralized brains. In the first of two studies, 12 psychopathic and 12 nonpsychopathic incarcerated men completed three verbal tasks chosen to capitalize on lateralized cognition. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during the tasks to approximate magnitude, location, and timing of cortical activation. In Study 2, participants completed four nonverbal tasks. Overall patterns of lateralized performance and electrocortical activity suggest that psychopaths use unusual strategies and/or brain areas to process information with no apparent decrements in performance. It appears that psychopaths have diffusely organized brains for a wide variety of cognitions, rendering them incapable of integrating emotional and verbal information. As a result, they may be unable to follow social norms or develop meaningful relationships with others, while appearing intellectually normal. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.)--Drexel University, 2007. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-69).

No description available.

Research has shown that aggressive children demonstrate a bias toward attributing hostility to peers in unwarranted circumstances. This bias has been found to be associated with speed of responding and recall of hostile cues. This study aimed to develop a scale to investigate the role of similar cognitive biases in the decisionmaking processes of adult psychopaths. The development of the scale to measure the decision-making processes involved in adults when dealing with ambiguous situations is described, and normative data provided for 56 normal adults. The role of recall of hostile information in the decision-making process is examined, as are the effects of the amount of information used to make a decision. The results show the presence of similar biases to those found in children, namely - those individuals who encode and thus recall more hostile information tend to interpret ambiguous situations in a more hostile manner and make more unwarranted hostile decisions, especially when they make their decisions quickly and based on little information. Although in adults it seems this process is not related specifically to hostile individuals, when high levels of hostility are combined with quick responding this leads to these individuals making the most unwarranted hostile decisions of all. It is also shown that slowing down the decision-making process and instructing individuals to attend to all available information before making a decision results in marked improvements in accuracy of decisions made and reduces the number of unwarranted hostile decisions made. The results are discussed in relation to Dodge's (1986) social information processing model, and implications for treatment are highlighted.

Thesis (M.S.)--Southern Utah University, 2009. / Title from PDF title page. "Master's thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master's in Forensic Science." Jeff Elison, PhD [Graduate Committee Chair] Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-54).

Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (Dept. of Psychology) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-103). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.