James Carter | Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn (original) (raw)

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Papers by James Carter

… of sexual aggression, Jan 1, 2005

Previous research has suggested that sex offenders are deficient in several areas of emotional fu... more Previous research has suggested that sex offenders are deficient in several areas of emotional functioning such as empathy, emotional perception, emotional management and interpersonal functioning. It is unclear, however, whether sex offenders display a general deficit in emotional functioning or whether their emotional deficits are specific to the circumstances in which offences occur. The present study aimed to provide a broad assessment of the emotional functioning of sex offenders by assessing their emotional intelligence (EI) using an abilities-based emotional intelligence test. Nineteen sex offenders, 18 non-sex offending prisoners and 19 controls were administered the Perception, Assimilation and Management branch subtests from the Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). The results indicated that the sex offenders were not significantly different than the control group, as assessed by these three branches of the MSCEIT. The results lend support to the suggestion that the emotional deficits displayed by sex offenders may be offence-specific. Implications for the use of the MSCEIT in sex offending populations and the role of EI in relapse prevention programmes are discussed.

Psychopharmacology, Jan 1, 2005

Forensic science international, Jan 1, 2005

… Attention Disorders, Jan 1, 2003

The stop signal task (stop task) is designed to assess inhibitory control and is a frequently use... more The stop signal task (stop task) is designed to assess inhibitory control and is a frequently used research tool in clinical disorders such as ADHD and schizophrenia. Previous methods of setting stop signal delay and of assessing inhibitory control are problematic.

…, Jan 1, 2004

Rationale: It has been suggested that 3,4methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) causes d... more Rationale: It has been suggested that 3,4methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) causes damage to the serotonergic system, and that this damage results in cognitive and mood impairments. Objectives: To examine the effect of chronic MDMA usage on a wide battery of cognitive tests and psychological abilities and processes. Methods: In the present study, the performance of 17 participants with a history of MDMA use was compared to the performance of 15 control subjects on a battery of neuropsychological tests. This battery included tests for depression, immediate word recall, delayed recall, attention and working memory. Results: Results indicated that the MDMA group had significantly higher scores for depression than the control group, and displayed poorer delayed recall and verbal learning than controls after accounting statistically for the effects of cannabis and depression. Conclusions: These results suggest that MDMA users exhibit difficulties in coding information into long-term memory, display impaired verbal learning, are more easily distracted, and are less efficient at focusing attention on complex tasks.

Schizophrenia …, Jan 1, 2010

Attention deficits are considered to be fundamental in patients with schizophrenia. During attent... more Attention deficits are considered to be fundamental in patients with schizophrenia. During attention tasks, patients with schizophrenia have been shown to display increased brain activity in some neuroimaging studies but reduced brain activity in others. These conflicting findings may be due to some study designs primarily eliciting transient engagement of attention and other study designs primarily eliciting sustained engagement of attention.In the present study, ten males with schizophrenia and fourteen age-matched, male controls performed a visual selective attention task. A mixed block/event-related fMRI design was used, allowing for separate analysis of transient and sustained phases of attention.Results revealed that the schizophrenia group made significantly fewer correct responses and displayed a significantly slower mean response time than the control group. Voxel-wise random effects analyses revealed that both groups displayed activation in regions considered to constitute a core attentional network including the anterior cingulate gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, insula and inferior parietal sulcus. Region of Interest (ROI) analyses revealed that across the entire sequence of task and non-task blocks, the schizophrenia group displayed a greater percentage of active voxels than controls in many ROIs. However, during transient periods most pertinent to task performance, the schizophrenia group displayed a lower percentage of active voxels than controls.These results help to explain contrasting findings across previous studies and suggest that attention deficits displayed by patients with schizophrenia are more likely to reflect deficits in modulating brain activity in response to variations in transient, attention demanding stimuli, rather than deficits in sustained attention.