Interesting that this study only considered VIOLENT offenders. So maybe they've got something on that type, but what about the sub-criminal psychopaths?
The following is a reply to
this thread, but I decided to post it here because of greater relevancy, and also because it actually provides an answer to the above question.
In another thread Laura asked the folowing:
Again, the bizarre thing is the apparent inability to interface with reality via language and how telling a clue that must be if only the reader was paying attention (which I was). Some of the authors were better than others, but all of them had this problem.
Here are some things that came up after a bit of research. It began with
a paper I stumbled upon recently. The paper made a connection between motor and language skills.
Fine motor skills utilized when using tools engage parts of the brain similar to those mobilized when we think about the construction of a sentence, researchers report.
We observed that the motor training and the syntactic exercises activated common areas of the brain in a region called the basal ganglia. The two tasks activated these common parts of the brain in similar ways (for example, we observed similar distribution of the activations).
Afterwards they did a series of exercises and tests that showed clear benefits of "tool training" prior to language exercises, and vice versa.
The function of basal ganglia is motor control, motor learning, executive functions and behaviors, and
impulse control. And psychopaths are known for poor impulse control. Well, at least those who are in jail.
There is also
this paper that talks about "Neurobiological correlates of impulsivity in healthy adults:
Lower prefrontal gray matter volume and spontaneous eye-blink rate but
greater resting-state functional connectivity in basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuitry."
So far it correlates with what was said in the first paper that was mentioned in this thread. Impulsiveness may be increased and associated with reduced frontal lobe activity and reduced gray matter volume.
What is also curious is the greater functional connectivity in basal ganglia. If we take into account what is said in the paper about language skills,
it may explain why some psychopaths exhibit glib charm and "silver tongue".
But then it still doesn't answer the question: If psychopaths have such a poor impulse control, why some of them are able to hide? What's the difference between "unsuccessful" and "successful" psychopath?
This paper says the following:
People with psychopathic traits are predisposed toward antisocial behavior that can result in “unsuccessful” outcomes such as incarceration. However, many individuals with psychopathic traits are able to control their antisocial tendencies and avoid committing the antagonistic acts that can result...
Neuroimaging reveals ‘successful’ psychopaths (those who can control their antisocial tendencies) have greater levels of gray matter density between the left and right ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain is implicated in self-regulatory processes, including reactive emotions...
Most neuroscientific models of psychopathy emphasize deficits in brain structure and function. These new findings lend preliminary support to the growing notion that psychopathic individuals have some advantages compared to others, not just deficiencies...
It's possible that in some cases they may even have greater levels of gray matter than "normals".
Coming back to the topic of language and malapropisms, I wasn't able to find a paper that talks specifically about that in relation to psychopathy. Maybe it was mentioned on some other thread on the forum. But there is indeed research that indicates abnormalities in supramarginal gyrus.
The supramarginal gyrus (plural: supramarginal gyri) is a portion of the parietal lobe of the brain. It is one of the two parts of the inferior parietal lobule, the other being the angular gyrus.
It plays a role in phonological processing (i.e. of spoken and written language) and emotional responses.
Here's the paper.
We tested the hypothesis that psychopathy is associated with abnormalities in semantic processing of linguistic information. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to elucidate and characterize the neural architecture underlying lexico-semantic processes in criminal psychopathic individuals and in a group of matched control participants....
Consistent with our hypothesis, psychopathic individuals, relative to controls, showed poorer behavioral performance for processing abstract words...
Analyses confirmed our prediction that psychopathic individuals would fail to show the appropriate neural differentiation between abstract and concrete stimuli in the right anterior temporal gyrus and surrounding cortex.
The results are consistent with other studies of semantic processing in psychopathy and support the theory that psychopathy is associated with right hemisphere abnormalities for processing conceptually abstract material.
Unfortunately I lack proper academic background and knowledge to draw any conclusions. There is also no clear cut differences in how language is being processed in prefrontal cortex regions and other regions of the brain. Here's
some info about Broca's region for example.
But it's possible that there is something to it, and what I was able to gather from everything I read today, that if the psychopath is considered to be "successful", i.e has enough gray matter, he or she can benefit from better activation of the language center by way of greater connectivity in basal ganglia. This way they can be charming and talk their way out of situations.
But if at the same time they lack a proper processing of abstract concepts, the longer we interact with them, the higher the chance that this deficient will become more apparent. Malapropism is a type of semantic error and requires a more abstract understanding of when to use specific words of phrases.
Basically, we may be dazzled by their overall impression, but the more we pay attention, their use of the language, especially abstract concepts, can "reveal their hand".