Juveniles with a history of violent behavior show cognitive performance and electrophysiology consistent with inhibitory control and emotional feedback processing problems.

Abstract

Inhibitory control and the effects of negative emotional feedback were investigated in adolescents with a history of violent behavior and normal adolescents using the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP), a task simulating real situations of social interaction to elicit aggressive behavior and negative emotions, with concurrent event related potential recordings. The Reactive Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPAQ), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) and the Negative Mood Regulation (NMR) Scale were also presented. These showed that reactive scores, proactive scores, and BIS scores were all significantly higher for the violent offender group whereas scores from the NMR scale were significantly lower for this group. In the TAP, the violent offender group chose significantly higher levels of punishment, indicative of both higher proactive and higher reactive aggression, for their opponent than did the control group. The ERP data showed the N2 amplitude for the decision phase, indicative of inhibitory control, was lower for the violent offender group than for the control group, with mediation analysis showing that the N2 component was related to proactive aggression. The decision-related negativity and the feedback-related negativity in the result phase were also both lower for the violent offender group than for the control group. Adolescent violent offenders showed higher levels of aggressive behavior than normal adolescents. This is associated with both worse inhibitory control and worse negative emotion regulation. Investigation of common factors underlying these processes, in conjunction with possible ways in which they might be improved, should be a priority for future work.