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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.
Endowment Effect in Chimpanzees
Gruter News
Gruter Institute Research Fellow Sarah Brosnan, primatologist at Georgia State Univeristy, was interviewed in Live Science about her research on the endowment effect that was published in the October 9th issue of Current Biology . In short, the endowment effect is that chimpanzees and people often consider an item to be more valuable once they own it compared to prior to their ownership interest. The endowment effect was the subject of Brosnan's keynote address at this year's Gruter Institute Squaw Valley conference. In the Live Science interview Brosnan stated that "we have evolved a strong bias against letting go of our property, so in law it is important to take this into consideration and put mechanisms in place to ameliorate it."
Gruter Institute to Take Part in MacArthur Foundation Grant on Law and Neuroscience
Law and Neuroscience Project News
The Gruter Institute is delighted to announce that it will be taking part in a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation aimed at integrating new developments in neuroscience into the U.S. legal system. The Gruter Institute will work together with a distinguished and interdisciplinary group of scientists, legal scholars, jurists, and philosophers from across the country on this Project. The Gruter Institute will lead the education and outreach work under the grant, overseeing numerous yearly conferences aimed at educating state and federal judges and others in the legal arena about neuroscientific findings relevant to the law. The Project is supported by an initial, three-year $10 million grant for the MacArthur Foundation.
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.
Interview with Luigi Cavalli-Sforza
Gruter News
An interview with Gruter Institute Research Fellow Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, was featured on October 17, 2007 in Nature News. In the interview, Cavalli-Sforza disussed his new project to map the genetics of Italy.
