Neuropsychological implications of selective attentional functioning in psychopathic offenders

Andrew R. Mayer, David S. Kosson, Edward J. Bedrick

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Several core characteristics of the psychopathic personality disorder (i.e., impulsivity, failure to attend to interpersonal cues) suggest that psychopaths suffer from disordered attention. However, there is mixed evidence from the cognitive literature as to whether they exhibit superior or deficient selective attention, which has led to the formation of several distinct theories of attentional functioning in psychopathy. The present experiment investigated participants' abilities to purposely allocate attentional resources on the basis of auditory or visual linguistic information and directly tested both theories of deficient or superior selective attention in psychopathy. Specifically, 91 male inmates at a county jail were presented with either auditory or visual linguistic cues (with and without distractors) that correctly indicated the position of an upcoming visual target in 75% of the trials. The results indicated that psychopaths did not exhibit evidence of superior selective attention in any of the conditions but were generally less efficient in shifting attention on the basis of linguistic cues, especially in regard to auditory information. Implications for understanding psychopaths' cognitive functioning and possible neuropsychological deficits are addressed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)614-624
Number of pages11
JournalNeuropsychology
Volume20
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2006
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Orienting
  • Psychopathy
  • Selective attention
  • Visual-spatial

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology

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