Memory for emotional events in violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder

Eight-eight violent offenders meeting the criteria for DSM-IV antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist-Screening Version (PCL-SV) and compared with 20 healthy controls on an emotional memory task. All participants showed enhanced memory for the emotional phase of the task. On the free and cued recall components of the task high psychopathy scorers showed most impairment on the emotional phase compared with healthy controls. Analyses of psychopathy dimensions indicated no evidence of a dimensional relationship with emotional memory, but subjects categorised as scoring on the extremes of the psychopathy scale particularly those with high emotional detachment (Factor 1) and antisocial behaviour (Factor 2) had impairments in free recall an effect that was attenuated when subjects received cues to assist recall. The results suggest that emotional memory impairments in antisocial populations may be related to a variety of emotional and attentional processes linked with the prefrontal-limbic neural circuitry.