Raine Study Flashcards
How many participants were there?
41
How many women were there?
2
How many men were there?
39
What was the mean age of the experimental group?
34.3
Where did the study take place?
University of California
How many participants had schizophrenia?
6
How many participants had a history of head injury or brain damage?
23
How many participants had a history of psychoactive drug abuse?
3
How many participants had an affective disorder?
2
How many participants had epilepsy?
2
How many participants had a history of hyperactivity and learning disability?
3
How many participants had a personality disorder?
2
How many weeks did participants have to be medication free for before the study?
2 weeks
What sampling method was used?
Opportunity sampling
How was brain activity measured?
Using a PET scan where FDG was injected to highlight active areas of the brain?
What was the purpose of the study?
To find if the brain activity of murderers was different to normal people
What did the participants have to do in the PET scan?
A continious performance task
What was the purpose of the CPT?
To acivate target areas of the brain
What was the name of the radioactive tracer used?
Flurodeoxyglucose (FDG)
How long after starting the CPT were participants injected with FDG?
30 seconds
How long after being injected were participants put in the PET scan?
32 minutes
What technique for the PET scans were used
Cortical peel and box techniques
10 horizontal slides
What points can be made about the findings of the study?
Brain differences
Performance in the CBT
Other differences not controlled for
What brain differences were found?
Lowerd in left hemisphere (prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus and corpus callosum)
Raised in right hemisphere (cerebellum, amygdala, thalamus and hippocampus
Some parts had normal function
What areas of the brain had lowered function?
Prefrontal cortex
Angular gyrus
Corpus Callosum
What areas of the brain had raised function?
Cerebellum
Amygdala
Thalamus
Hippocampus
What can be said about the performance of the participants in the CBT?
Both groups performed silimarily so differences in brain activity did not effect their performance
What differences were not controlled for?
6 were left handed and had less amygdala asymetry and more prefrontal activity
14 were non-white
23 had a history of head injury
What can we conclude from the study?
Murderers pleading NGRI have different functioning brains
Not cause and effect
May predispose us to violence
Don’t show murderers have no responsability
What might dysfunction in the limbic system explain?
Abnormal emotional responses
What might dysfunction in the perfrontal cortex explain?
An inability to modify behaviour
What might dysfunction in the amygdala explain?
Fearlessness associated with violent activity
What points can be made when evaluating the methodology and procedures?
Quasi-experiment
Research technique
The sample
Yang and Raine
Tiihonen
James Fallon
How is the research a quasi experiment?
The independant variable was not manipulated so no cause and effect conclusion can be drawn.
(The independant variable was if they were killers)
How can the research technique be used to evaluate the methodology and procedures?
PET scans were used which are scientific and objective, allowing Raine to monitor activity in areas that previously wouldn’t have been accessed
How can the sample be used to evaluate the methodology and procedures?
Specific group of criminals so can’t be applied to all criminals
What supporting evidence did Yang and Raine give for the study?
Meta-analysis of 43 imaging studies
Violent offenders have reduced prefrontal activity
What supporting evidence did Tiihonen give for the study?
Studied 895 Finnish prisoners and found the MAOA gene which increaces dopamine levels. People with this gene have an increaced chance of criminal behaviour
What contrasting evidence did James Fallon give for the study?
He studied his own genome and found he had the MAOA gene yet was not a criminal. He thought it predisposed people to violence but his own tendancies were not triggered due to positive childhood experiances.
What were the ethical issues and social implications of the study?
Valid consent
Socially sensative
Why was valid consent an issue?
Participants pleading NGRI so may not have been competant enough to give valid consent.
May not have understood their right to withdraw
CPT may have lowered their self-esteem
Why was the research socially sensative?
People with similar brain function may be imprisioned without trial or treated differently
How many of the participants were left handed?
6
How many of the participants were non-white?
14
