Poster Session 05 Program Schedule
02/15/2024
02:30 pm - 03:45 pm
Room: Majestic Complex (Posters 61-120)
Poster Session 05: Neuropsychiatry | Addiction/Dependence | Stress/Coping | Emotional/Social Processes
Final Abstract #72
The role of Theory of mind in Criminal Behavior
Francesca Mariani, Hospital de Clínicas, Montevideo, Uruguay
Ismael Calandri, Fleni, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Sergio Dansilio, Hospital de Clínicas, Montevideo, Uruguay
Category: Social Cognition
Keyword 1: theory of mind
Keyword 2: frontal lobes
Keyword 3: antisocial behavior
Objective:
Evaluate the theory of mind mechanisms in people deprived of their liberty for homicide crimes and to analyze their relationship with the functions linked to the prefrontal cortex according to their expression in specifically designed neuropsychological tests.
Participants and Methods:
Twenty-seven subjects deprived of liberty for committing cold-blooded homicides were studied. Two control groups were used, one of subjects in prison for sale or possession of drugs and another of normotypical subjects released. The Faux-Pas tasks and the Reading the mind in the eyes test were used, and the neuropsychological battery of executive functions and frontal lobes. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) was also applied.
Results:
The subjects deprived of their liberty (homicides and narcotics) have comparable performances in all measures. The free control group showed higher performance, with statistical significance, in the Faux-Pas test. This was not the case for the reading the mind in the eyes test. The groups in prison did not show pathological value ranges in BANFE, so the relationship between ToM and prefrontal domains could not be demonstrated. There were also no scores above the cut-off criterion for psychopathy on the PCL-R, only moderate negative correlations were found between the FP and the PCL-R.
Conclusions:
A distinction between affective and cognitive ToM could be affirmed, with people deprived of liberty presenting deficient functioning in the cognitive ToM test. This difference in performance could be linked to the disruptive event with the social norm and not so much with the violent act itself.
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