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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/7124 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Mills, Rebecca Mary Isabel |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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