Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders

Certain types of violent offending are often accompanied by evidence of personality disorders (PDs), a range of heterogeneous conditions characterised by disinhibited behaviours that are generally described as impulsive. The tasks previously used to show impulsivity deficits experimentally (in borde...

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Main Authors: He, Z., Cassaday, Helen J., Howard, Richard C., Khalifa, Najat, Bonardi, Charlotte
Format: Article
Published: 2011
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2234/
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author He, Z.
Cassaday, Helen J.
Howard, Richard C.
Khalifa, Najat
Bonardi, Charlotte
author_facet He, Z.
Cassaday, Helen J.
Howard, Richard C.
Khalifa, Najat
Bonardi, Charlotte
author_sort He, Z.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Certain types of violent offending are often accompanied by evidence of personality disorders (PDs), a range of heterogeneous conditions characterised by disinhibited behaviours that are generally described as impulsive. The tasks previously used to show impulsivity deficits experimentally (in borderline personality disorder, BPD) have required participants to inhibit previously rewarded responses. To date, no research has examined the inhibition of responding based on Pavlovian stimulus-stimulus contingencies, formally ‘conditioned inhibition’ (CI), in PDs. The present study used a computer-based task to measure excitatory and inhibitory learning within the same CI procedure in offenders recruited from the ‘Personality Disorder’ and the ‘Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder’ units of a high security psychiatric hospital. These offenders showed a striking and statistically significant change in the expression of inhibitory learning in a highly controlled procedure: the contextual information provided by conditioned inhibitors had virtually no effect on their pre-potent associations. Moreover, this difference was not obviously attributable to non-specific cognitive or motivational factors. Impaired CI would reduce the ability to learn to control associative triggers, and so could provide an explanation of some types of offending behaviour.
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spelling nottingham-22342020-05-04T20:23:55Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2234/ Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders He, Z. Cassaday, Helen J. Howard, Richard C. Khalifa, Najat Bonardi, Charlotte Certain types of violent offending are often accompanied by evidence of personality disorders (PDs), a range of heterogeneous conditions characterised by disinhibited behaviours that are generally described as impulsive. The tasks previously used to show impulsivity deficits experimentally (in borderline personality disorder, BPD) have required participants to inhibit previously rewarded responses. To date, no research has examined the inhibition of responding based on Pavlovian stimulus-stimulus contingencies, formally ‘conditioned inhibition’ (CI), in PDs. The present study used a computer-based task to measure excitatory and inhibitory learning within the same CI procedure in offenders recruited from the ‘Personality Disorder’ and the ‘Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder’ units of a high security psychiatric hospital. These offenders showed a striking and statistically significant change in the expression of inhibitory learning in a highly controlled procedure: the contextual information provided by conditioned inhibitors had virtually no effect on their pre-potent associations. Moreover, this difference was not obviously attributable to non-specific cognitive or motivational factors. Impaired CI would reduce the ability to learn to control associative triggers, and so could provide an explanation of some types of offending behaviour. 2011 Article PeerReviewed He, Z., Cassaday, Helen J., Howard, Richard C., Khalifa, Najat and Bonardi, Charlotte (2011) Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64 (12). pp. 2334-2351. ISSN 1747-0218 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17470218.2011.616933 doi:10.1080/17470218.2011.616933 doi:10.1080/17470218.2011.616933
spellingShingle He, Z.
Cassaday, Helen J.
Howard, Richard C.
Khalifa, Najat
Bonardi, Charlotte
Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders
title Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders
title_full Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders
title_fullStr Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders
title_full_unstemmed Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders
title_short Impaired Pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders
title_sort impaired pavlovian conditioned inhibition in offenders with personality disorders
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2234/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2234/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2234/