Abstract

Neuroscience is often considered to have a certain ‘seductive allure’.1 Its mystique should not besurprising. Seeking to understand the network of nearly 100 billion neurons that make up the human brain, neuroscience examines some of the most difficult questions imaginable. And yet, it is also a deeply personal discipline—questions like, ‘How do we create memories?’ and ‘What causes emotions?’ touch on experiences shared by all people.

Does the mystique of neuroscience cause individuals to ascribe undue weight to neuroscientific findings, or assume that neuroimages indicate research quality? Over the past decade, a literature has sprung up seeking to answer questions like these. One important context for that literature is the courtroom. The use of neuroscience in legal contexts has increased in recent years,2 and scholarly interest for the topic has skyrocketed,3 leading to the very natural question: will judges and jurors—who are typically not scientists—be able to give neuroscientific evidence presented in court appropriate weight, or will they be overly swayed by alluring images and conclusions? Should the rules of evidence protect factfinders from such undue influence?

In a recent issue of The Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Francis Shen and his coauthors offer a new dataset examining this issue. It is among the first, to my knowledge, in the context of neuroscience-based memory recognition detection—a relatively new field in which an examiner attempts to detect whether an individual possesses knowledge that allows an inference as to that person’s role in a prior event (such as a crime), and which has been regularly referenced for its potential application in court. In this brief commentary, I seek to critically examine what we can learn from that dataset, and provide some framework for future research in this area.

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