Ms. Aveson is a Doctoral Candidate in the Clinical Psychology Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA. Dr. Nestor is Professor of Psychology at University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA and Clinical Neuroscience Division, Laboratory of Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, VA Boston Healthcare System, Brockton Division, Brockton, MA and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Dr. Klein is Program Manager, Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Recovery Services, VA Central California Health Care System.
J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 2023 Jun;51(2):190-198. doi: 10.29158/JAAPL.220065-22. Epub 2023 Mar 16.
This study sought to delineate the neuropsychological processes that undergird the psycho-legal concept of competency to stand trial (CST). Accordingly, we retrospectively examined the relationship between clinical judgments of competence or incompetence of defendants committed to a maximum-security psychiatric facility and neuropsychological measures of cognitive and social intelligence and declarative memory. Results indicated that both groups (competent and incompetent) showed similar levels of depressed cognitive intelligence with Wechsler full-scale IQ levels falling in the upper end of the borderline range. Compared with defendants clinically judged as incompetent, defendants recommended as competent scored significantly higher on measures of social intelligence and episodic memory, with the most pronounced advantage occurring on tests of verbal memory that place heavy demands on encoding, consolidation, and retrieval of aurally presented narrative material. Cognitive capacities in areas of social intelligence and episodic memory may play critical roles in developing a heuristic neuropsychological model of CST. The evaluation of these domains offers implications for the assessment, restoration, and understanding of CST.
本研究旨在描绘支持精神法律概念——审判能力（CST）的神经心理学过程。因此，我们回顾性地检查了被送进最高安全级别精神病院的被告的临床能力或无能力判断与认知和社会智力以及陈述性记忆的神经心理学测量之间的关系。结果表明，两组（有能力和无能力）的抑郁认知智力水平相似，韦氏全量表智商水平处于边缘范围的较高端。与临床上被判断为无能力的被告相比，被推荐为有能力的被告在社会智力和情景记忆方面的得分显著更高，在需要大量依赖听觉呈现叙事材料的编码、巩固和检索的言语记忆测试中，优势最为明显。社会智力和情景记忆领域的认知能力可能在开发 CST 的启发式神经心理学模型中发挥关键作用。对这些领域的评估为 CST 的评估、恢复和理解提供了启示。
