[The impact of emotional stimuli on working memory in female delinquent juveniles]

This paper focuses on the objective to what extent detained girls exhibit deficits with respect to spatial working memory. Moreover, this study investigates the influence of visual emotional stimuli on the working memory of antisocial female juveniles as well as the relationship between the number of errors in performing the different working memory tasks and psychopathy.

A group of incarcerated female adolescents (n = 33) was compared with a group of non-delinquent students attending grades 10 and 11 of an integrated comprehensive school (n = 20). Three variants of the Subject-Ordered Pointing Task (SOPT: neutral, erotic-, fear-related) and the Psychopathy-Checklist Youth Version (PCL:YV) were administered to the two groups.

Analyses of variance showed significant differences between the two groups regarding the neutral and the fear-related variants of the SOPT, but none regarding the erotic-related variant. Hypothesized associations between psychopathy and the neutral variant were affirmed, but not for the fear-related variant of the SOPT.

This study demonstrated similar deficits with respect to neutral working memory in detained female juveniles as have been affirmed for male antisocials within the literature. On the one hand, the expected levelling of the group difference regarding working memory accomplishment in the erotic variant could be explained by an improvement of the often sexually traumatized delinquent female adolescents, and on the other hand by impairment in the control group. The results with respect to working memory accomplishment on the basis of fear-related stimuli indicated that girls with high psychopathy scores differ from antisocial boys and might still react susceptible to emotional stimuli.