Classic Evidence - Raine Et Al

Question 1

What approach is this classics evidence for ?

Answer 1

• the biological approach

Question 2

What was Raine interested in?

Answer 2

• in whether there was dysfunctional difference between criminals and non criminals e.g amygdala, hippocampus etc - brain areas linked to violence
• in which lombroso suggested that criminals have a narrow, sloping forehead with large ears and have a protruding chin
• no dysfunction is expected in midbrain cerebellum, putamen and caudate - linked to other psychiatric conditions but which have not been related to violence.

Question 3

What were the aims of this research ?

Answer 3

• to look at direct measures of both cortical and sub cortical brain functioning using PET scans
• to prove that murderers would show evidence of brain dysfunction in their prefrontal cortex as well as in other areas that are thought to be linked to violent behaviour

Question 4

Methodology exp participants

Answer 4

-EXPERIMENTAL GROUP
- 41 pts (found not guilty by reason of insanity ,NGRI)
- opportunity sample ( university of California for examination)
- 23/41 had history of head injuries
- 6 were schizophrenic
- they were all medication free 2 weeks prior to brain scanning

Question 5

Methodology control group

Answer 5

• not murderers
• matched to the experimental group on age and sex (matched pairs)
• 6 had schizophrenia (to match with experimental group)
• the remaining had no personal or familiar history of mental illness.
• none were on medication

Question 6

Methodology - what type of experiment was it ? And what was the IV and DV?

Answer 6

• quasi experiment because Raine did not manipulate the in themselves but took advantage of a ‘naturally occurring’ event e.g they didn’t ‘make’the people NGRI murderers
• IV = NGRI murderers or not
• DV = Brain function

Question 7

Procedure

Answer 7

1. CPT practice trails given for 10 mins ( pts detect target signals so investigators could see how the different areas functioned
2. Pts injected with FDG and continued with the CPT for 32 mins
3. 32 mins after the injection, pts were transferred to a PET scanner
4. 10 horizontal ‘slices’ were taken of the brain. Two different techniques were used so they could be compared later and ensure validity: these were the ‘cortical peel’ and ‘box’ techniques