論負面情緒如何影響衝動型暴力青少年的行為能力

How do negative emotions affect behavioral control in impulsive violent adolescents?

暴力行為常被極端情緒狀態所引發，越來越多的研究開始著重在暴力行為的神經機制，情緒刺激如何影響這些行為的研究卻不多。衝動型暴力行為的機制， 可能是因為有過強的衝動傾向，亦或是抑制能力的缺損的結果，停止訊號作業可以偵測這二種不同的失能，分別以go反應時間與停止信號反應時間當作行為激發系統與行為抑制系統的指標。如果暴力犯的行為激發系統過強，則會觀察到 go反應時間過快，反之，如果他的行為抑制系統過低，停止信號反應時間會增長。本研究以暴力青少年為研究對象，採用情緒性停止訊號作業，主要探討他們在不同情緒刺激情境下的行為抑制歷程中發生哪些改變，也就是整合情緒與認知控制的能力二個面向來探討青少年暴力行為發生的原因。本研究採用情緒性刺激來引發受試者的情緒反應，接著測量在不同情緒反應下的抑制能力及衝動反應，本實驗設計方式是透過對於go刺激有更快的反應速度和產生接近50%的抑制失敗錯誤率，受試者需要投入更多的抑制控制來強烈的go反應傾向以及調控抑制失敗後的負向情緒反應，而這對衝動型暴力青少年可能更加的困難。同時為了提高暴力行為分類的準確性，採用海爾病態人格心理量表及衝動-預謀攻擊行為量表，目的是要瞭解受試者之病態人格及攻擊行為傾向。研究結果顯示在負向情緒 刺激的情況下，實驗組的停止訊號反應時間顯著地比控制組長，這顯示他們負向 情緒刺激會影響他們的抑制的能力，他們無法有效調控負面情緒，導致降低其抑制能力，來調整自身的行為。本研究提供一個開端，希望在累積一定研究數量後， 對於偵測及預防暴力犯罪提供一個最佳的建議。

Interpersonal violent behavior is often induced by extreme emotional states. While there is increasing interest in the neurological bases of violent behavior, the effects of emotional stimuli on such behavior are poorly understood. Repeated violent offenders are often described as having both impairments in emotion and inhibitory control and impulsive violent behavior could be a consequence of either a greater tendency to generate pre-potent responses or a deficit in inhibition of such responses. Both of these can be indexed using a stop signal task. If we consider that violent offenders may be characterized by higher behavioral activation system activity, their go RTs on such a task would be expected to be lower than controls. In contrast, if they are characterized by lower behavioral inhibition system activity, their SSRT, which indexes inhibitory control, might be expected to be longer than for controls. Furthermore, the task design may cause the subjects to develop an impulsive response style characterized by faster reaction times to go stimuli, maintaining close to 50% unsuccessful inhibited responses. If so, the subjects need more inhibitory control to overcome the stronger go response tendency. I compared the effects of emotional stimuli on behavior in adolescents who had a history of impulsive violence using emotional stimuli in a stop signal task to investigate how negative emotions affect inhibitory control in this group. Results showed that the SSRTs of impulsive violent adolescents in the negative emotional condition were significantly longer than matched controls. This shows this group may be unable to regulate negative emotions arising as a result of errors or use such error information to adjust their behavior effectively, resulting in more errors being committed. This helps to characterize differences in these individuals and may indicate potential avenues to help reduce the possibility that they will carry out violent acts.