Neuropsychological deficit and aggressive behavior: A prospective study

Foster Hilliard G., Marc Hillbrand and Michael Silverstein: Neuropsychological Deficit and Aggressive Behavior: A Prospective Study. Prog. Neuro-Psychopharmacol. & Biol. Psychiat. 1993, 17(6): 939–946. 1. 1. Failures in higher cortical executive functions and dyscontrol of aggressive impulses were hypothesized to co-occur in aggressive men. 2. 2. The performance of a sample of violent forensic patients on selected neuropsychological measures (Judgment of Line Orientation, Stroop Color Word Test, Emotion Perception Test, Test Of Nonverbal Intelligence, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and Symbol Digit Modalities Test) were used to predict their overt aggressive behavior during a one-year period using the Overt Aggression Scale. 3. 3. Whole-set correlation analyses revealed that scores on the Judgment of Line Orientation, Stroop Color Word Test, and Emotion Perception Test accounted for 57% of the variance of aggression scores. 4. 4. Frequency of aggression, but not severity of aggression, can be predicted using these three scores.