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The fact that actual aggressiveness plays a minor role in predicting restraint is a new finding and should be further examined in future research.

To examine the development of recognition memory in primary-school children, 36 healthy younger children (8-9 years old) and 36 healthy older children (11-12 years old) participated in an ERP study with an extended continuous face recognition task (Study 1). Each face of a series of 30 faces was shown randomly six times interspersed with distracter faces. The children were required to make old vs. new decisions. Older children responded faster than younger children, but younger children exhibited a steeper decrease in latencies across the five repetitions. Older children exhibited better accuracy for new faces, but there were no age differences in recognition accuracy for repeated faces. For the N2, N400 and late positive complex (LPC), we analyzed the old/new effects (repetition 1 vs. new presentation) and the extended repetition effects (repetitions 1 through 5). Compared to older children, younger children exhibited larger frontocentral N2 and N400 old/new effects. For extended face repetitions, negativity of the N2 and N400 decreased in a linear fashion in both age groups. For the LPC, an ERP component thought to reflect recollection, no significant old/new or extended repetition effects were found. Employing the same face recognition paradigm in 20 adults (Study 2), we found a significant N400 old/new effect at lateral frontal sites and a significant LPC repetition effect at parietal sites, with LPC amplitudes increasing linearly with the number of repetitions. This study clearly demonstrates differential developmental courses for the N400 and LPC pertaining to recognition memory for faces. It is concluded that face recognition in children is mediated by early and probably more automatic than conscious recognition processes. In adults, the LPC extended repetition effect indicates that adult face recognition memory is related to a conscious and graded recollection process rather than to an automatic recognition process.

The use of relevant reinforcers during treatment is essential for successful interventions. This especially applies to forensic psychiatric populations, which are known to be resistant to treatment. However, it is not clear which rewards are of importance for different types of forensic patients. The aim of the present study was to investigate reward preferences in two forensic patient populations. Applying the concept mapping methodology, 34 male incarcerated violent offenders under imposed psychiatric treatment and 41 male forensic outpatients generated, prioritized and categorized 98 and 115 rewards, respectively. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analyses resulted in two concept maps with eight (inpatients) and five (outpatients) reward categories. In both maps, one dimension represented the effort required to achieve the rewards. The other dimension represented either the rewards' independency of the clinical environment (inpatients) or the level of arousal associated with the rewards (outpatients). Both inpatients and outpatients tended to rate high-effort rewards as the most valuable, especially when the rewards involved the clinical environment of the patient or when rewards were associated with lower levels of arousal. The results highlight the importance of considering individual differences in reward preferences in the development of therapeutic interventions.

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