Raine et al (1997)

• what is the aim of Raine's study?

  study brain activity of NGRI killers and comparing PET scans with normal control
• what was the hypothesis for this study?

  NGRI killers will show abnormal activity in the brain areas associated violence in the brain
• what does NGRI stand for?

  Not Guilty by reason of insanity
• where are areas in the brain associated with violence in the brain?

  Prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus and corpus callosum
• what was the experimental group?

  41 participants convicted of manslaughter pleading NGRI
• how many of the experimental group were women?

  2 females
• what was special about the experimental group?

  6 had schizophrenia, and others had brain injuries and epilepsy
• who was in the control group?

  41 people for controlled for age and gender with 2 females
• what did the control group also have?

  6 schizophrenia people
• what did all the participants have to do for control?

  be off medication for 2 weeks prior to their scan
• what did they exclude from the control group?

  all experienced head trauma, history of seizure or substance abuse
• what groups design was the experiment?

  independent groups design
• why did the killer participate in the study?

  they wanted to plead NGRI and therefore needed evidence
• dependent variable

  brain activity in NGRI and controls
• what were they required to do?

  continuous performance task (CPT)- focusing on a blurred number.

  all participants did this for 32 minutes
• what happened after the CPT?

  they had a PET scan
• what were they injected with prior to the PET scan?

  radioactive glucose tracer
• what the result for the prefrontal cortex

  NGRI had less activity in frontal lobe
• what was the results for the occipital lobe?

  NGRI had more activity here
• NGRI had less activity in the corpus collosum

  results for the NGRI in the corpus collosum
• which amygdala has lower activity in the NGRI killers?

  left amygdala
• what did Raine conclude about a link?

  link between aggression and brain activity
• what other suggestion did Raine have about the limbi system

  deficits in that system can also be a reason for increase in aggression
• what was positive about the generalizability of the NGRI sample?

  pretty large sample therefore more likely to be representative
• what is negative about the generalizability for Raine?

  the findings ae generalised for more violent killers or general population
• what is negative about the gender representation in study?

  difficulty to generalise to females
• what were the good parts for reliability?

  standardised study - same task, all medication free
• what other study findings also help with reliability?

  research from Jim Fallon- abnormal brain activity in serial killers
• how was there good internal validity?

  used a similar comparison group in age and gender - extraneous variables controlled
• what variables in participants not controlled?

  ethnicity, handedness and head injuries
• what factors could have caused a negative impact on validity?

  social and situational factors on NGRI killers - trail stress effecting NGRI killer
• where can we apply this information?

  pet scans can be used to inform about the appropriate sentencing
• why is there a worry about informed consent?

  since the sanity of the NGRI killers is questionable it isn't possible to obtain informed consent from them
• who gave informed consent for their NGRI killers?

  their lawyers
• why is the research considered socially sensitive?

  suggests some people have nature to kill therefore cannot be held accountable - Raine says his findings do not represent that
• what are some people going to be labelled and that being a social sensitive issue?

  people may be labelled and treated differently despite never having committed a crime - Raine says his findings don't predict who will and wont kill