Linking the Criminal Brain and the Criminal Mind: Neuropsychological and Projective Psychological Test Performance in an Incarcerated Serial Homicide Offender

• In Event: Neurocriminological Approaches: Innovative Paradigms from the West Coast

Abstract

While to date much of neurocriminological research has focused on the functioning of the criminal brain, few studies, if any, have incorporated measures of the criminal “mind,” that is to say, measures of unconscious personality processes (i.e., projective personality measures). To that end, a significant dearth exists in the literature of studies that have examined relationships between neuropsychological and projective personality performance data in criminal offenders representing the extreme end of the violence continuum. For the present study, an incarcerated adult male convicted of eight separate homicides was administered a comprehensive neuropsychological testing battery along with the Rorschach Inkblot Test (RIT) and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). It was hypothesized that the participant would demonstrate increased performance on measures of executive functioning relative to published neuropsychological performance data on single and mass murderers (Fox and colleagues, 2016). Furthermore, aggressive responses on the RIT and TAT would be associated with memory functioning, given the proximity of the temporal lobe (which subserves memory processes) to the amygdala (one of the brain centers previously linked with aggression). Findings related to these proposed relationships and those between other neuropsychological and RIT and TAT variables will be discussed in terms of implications for innovative neurocriminological research paradigms.

Authors

• Robert Schug, California State University, Long Beach

• Jeremy Feiger, California State University, Long Beach

• Sara Boblak, California State University, Long Beach