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Cognitive Neuroscience, Decision Making and the Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Barbara Bottalico
Barbara Bottalico*
Affiliation:
University of Trento (Italy)and European Center for Law, Science and New Technologies ECLT, University of Pavia (Italy)
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Extract

Cognitive neuroscience was born when the theories and methods of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology were combined after a long period of parallel development. Over the last few decades, neuroscientific studies have begun to meet the challenge of understanding cognitive functions, thereby identifying the causal chain of neural events that underlies cognition. The development of powerful brain imaging technologies is now likely to present a range of opportunities in many spheres of public life, such as the criminal and civil justice system, and the business world.

Type
Reports
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 2011 , pp. 427 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 EANL is led by the University of Pavia (Italy). It involves neuroscientists, legal scholars, and ethicists from the UK, Italy, Belgium, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Spain, and has partnerships with the US, Canada and Australia.

2 The Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is currently the most used brain imaging technology: it uses the technology of regular magnetic resonance imaging to detect changes in hemodynamic properties of the brain occurring when the subject is engaged in very specific mental tasks.

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4 T. Chorvat et al., “Law and Neuroeconomics”, available on the Internet at <http://ssrn.com/abstract=501063> (last accessed on 8 July 2011).

5 Camerer, et al., “Neuroeconomics: how neuroscience can inform economics”, 43(1) Journal of Economic Literature (2005), pp. 9–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Ibid.

7 The term “neuroeconomics” was used for the first time in 2006 by Kevin McCabe for a course on neurology and economics; the first major books discussing this discipline was written in 2003 by Paul Glimcher, Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics, MIT 2003.

8 T. Chorvat et. al., “Law and Neuroeconomics”, supra note 4.

9 Ibid.

10 The concept of the Research Initiative “ Property, Intellectual Property and the Brain” is available on the Internet at <http://www.gruterinstitute.org/Intellectual_Property_files/IP%20abstract%20MGC%207-11-06.pdf> (last accessed on 8 July 2011)

11 Goodenough, O., “Can Cognitive Neuroscience Make Psychology a Foundational Discipline for the Study of Law?”, in Brooks-Gordon, Belinda and Freeman, Michael (eds), Law and Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2006), Current Legal Issues Vol. 9.Google Scholar

12 Hoffman, M.B., “The neuroeconomics path of the law”, 359 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. (2004), pp. 1667–1676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Holmes, O.W. jr., “The path of the law”, 1897(10) Harvard Law Review, pp. 457–478.Google Scholar

14 M.B. Hoffman, “The neuroeconomics path of the law”, supra note 12, p. 1671.

15 Finkel, A.M., “Perceiving Others’ Perceptions of Risk. Still a Task for Sisyphus”, 1125 Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. (2008), pp. 121–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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17 See also the work by Jennifer Lerner's Emotion and Decision Making Group at the Harvard Kennedy School, bibliography available on the Internet <http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/lernerlab/papers/> (last accessed on 5 July 2011).

18 Kahal, et al., “Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus”, 14 Journal of Risk Research (2011), pp. 147–74.Google Scholar

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Fischhoff, B., “Judgment and decision making”, Wily Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).Google ScholarPubMed

22 McCrae and Costa identifies them as: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience; McCrae, R.R., Costa, P.T. Jr., “Toward a new generation of personality theories: Theoretical contexts for the five-factor model”, in Wiggins, J.S. (ed.), The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives (New York: Guilford, 1996), pp. 51–87.Google Scholar

23 Greely, H. et al., “Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy”, 456 Nature (2008), pp. 702–705.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

24 M. Sandel, “What's wrong with enhancement?”, 2002, available on the Internet at <http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/pcbe/background/sandelpaper.html> (last accessed on 8 July 2011).

25 Müller, S. and Walter, H., “Reviewing Autonomy: Implications of the Neurosciences and the Free Will Debate for the Principle of Respect for the Patient's Autonomy”, 19 Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (2010), pp. 205–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

26 F. Russo, “The Brain: How to Change a Personality”, Time, Jan 18, 2007.

27 Other relevant theories are Risk-as-Feeling Concept: Loewenstein, et. al., “Risk as Feelings”, 127(2) Psychological Bullettin (2001), pp. 267–286 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Anticipatory Effect theory: Kuhnen, C.N., Knutson, B., “The Neural basis of Financial Risk Taking”, 47 Neuron (2005), pp. 763–770 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Net Emotional Response Strength: Hansen, F., Christensen, S.R., Emotion, Advertising and Consumer Choice (Copenhagen Business School Press, 2007).Google Scholar

28 De Jongh, R. et al., “Botox for the brain: enhancement of cognition, mood and pro-social behavior and blunting of unwanted memories”, 32 Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews (2008), pp. 760–776.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

29 The general tripartite risk communication scheme, here adapted on drugs issues, has been delineated by Fischhoff, Baruch, “Risk perception and communication”, in Detels, R., Beaglehole, R., Lansang, M.A., and Gulliford, M. (eds), Oxford Textbook of Public Health, Fifth Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press)Google Scholar, Reprinted in Chater, N.K. (ed.), Judgment and Decision Making (London: Sage, 2009), pp. 940–952.Google Scholar