Citation

Pontius AA. Aggress. Violent Behav. 2005; 10(3): 363-373.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Prompt unthinking violence requires fast visual processing, apparently reflected in specifically coarse neuropsychological visuospatial test performances by fear-ridden, warring hunter-gatherer tribespeople. Given that such tribes' survival depended on immediate reaction to quickly, albeit crudely evaluated visual stimuli, amygdalar visual processing was implicated, by-passing detailed cortical parieto-occipital evaluation. Independently, such amygdalar shortcut processing is now also being proposed by new neuroscientific data (fMRI, ERPS) under the impact of fear and in parieto-occipital dysfunctions. These data include representation of crude "blurred faces" analogous to the coarse "Neolithic face" (NF) patterns delineated by neuropsychological tests. Moreover, based on such congruencies between neuropsychological and neuroscientific findings, a common denominator of subcortical (amygdalar) visual processing is implicated to underlie various dysfunctions of the parieto-occipital cortex, including subforms of visuospatial dyslexia or preliterates' lack of training or ecocultural underuse of refined visual cortical evaluation. Such kinds of low or absent literacy skills reportedly also have an enhanced rate of aggressive behavior. Furthermore, NF is suggested as a triage-like marker for subtle parieto-occipital dysfunction that may also occur in early stages of Alzheimer's disease (with some reported aggressivity), possibly also early in HIV infection.