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Neurological Test Used to Convict Indian Defendant
Law and Neuroscience Project News
As reported in The International Herald Tribune , an Indian court has convicted a defendant of murder on the basis of a Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Test (BEOS). By using software to interpret the results of an electroencephalogram (EEG) the test supposedly is able to distinguish between people's memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they have committed. Many neuroscientists (including participants in the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project) are troubled that the technology was admitted into evidence since it has neither been validated by any independent study nor reported in a respected scientific journal.
Conference Update - Law and Neuroscience
Law and Neuroscience Project News
Through the Education & Outreach Program, the Gruter Institute has organized six major judicial education conferences exclusively for the purpose of educating both federal and state court judges about law and neuroscience. Curricula at these conferences has typically begun with a survey-level introduction to neuroscience, then moved on to specific subjects that include addiction, psychopathy, memory, moral decision-making, learning, bias, then highlighted the cautions and put neuroscience into context, showcased the work of the Networks, and finally ended with an interactive case study allowing the judges to discuss the insights from neuroscience in the context of a criminal case. Feedback from the judges has indicated that topics most of interest to them include: the neuroscience of addiction and substance abuse; admissibility and other procedural issues; adolescent decision-making; psychopathy (including the prediction of recidivism); bias; judging and judgment; memory; mental illness; pain; responsibility; and sex crimes.
For each of major judicial education conferences, the Gruter Institute has partnered with either the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), which is the leading judicial education organization for federal judges, or the National Judicial College (NJC), which is the leading judicial education organization for state level judges. The conferences have been hosted at eminent universities including Stanford, NYU, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Dartmouth. Each of the university hosts has been the home of various members of the Law & Neuroscience Project’s Networks.
Cooperation Counts
In The News
The work on cooperation of Harvard Univeristy mathematician and biologist Martin Nowak was featured in an October 15, 2007 article in The Boston Globe. Nowak is at the cutting edge of evolutionary dynamics and his research on cooperation was recently featured on the cover of Nature. Nowak's work has lead to findings that some would find surprising. In the Boston Globe article Nowak is quoted as stating that "[t]he most competivie scenario of natural selection, where everybody competes with everybody else, can actually lead to features like generosity and forgiveness."
Touch and Generosity
Gruter News
An article published in July 2008 in the journal of Evolution and Human Behavior entitled Monetary sacrifice among strangers is mediated by endogenous oxytocin release after physical contact , written by Vera Morhenn, Jang Woo Park, Elisabeth Piper and Paul Zak, explains the results of experiments investigating the link between touch, oxytocin, and generosity. Paul Zak is a Gruter Institute Research Fellow and Vera Morhenn and Jang Woo Park have both presented at Gruter Institute conferences. The study was featured in an article in The Economist entitled A touch of generosity .
Oxytocin and Generosity
Gruter News
The results of a research study entitled Oxytocin Increases Generosity in Humans? conducted by Gruter Institute Research Fellow Paul Zak of Claremont Graduate University was published in the November 2007 isse of PLoS ONE. In the study participatns were infused with oxytocin or a placebo and asked to participate in a blinded, one-shot decision on how to split a sum of money with a stranger that could be rejected. Among other findings, participants given oxytocin were found to be 80% more generous than those given a placebo. However, the same effect was not seen when the game was structured so that all offers must be accepted. An article discussing the study can be found in Discover Magazine .
