Predicting the knowledge-recklessness distinction in the human brain

Iris Vilares; Michael J. Wesley; Woo Young Ahn; Richard J. Bonnie; Morris Hoffman; Owen D. Jones; Stephen J. Morse; Gideon Yaffe; Terry Lohrenz; P. Read Montague

doi:10.1073/pnas.1619385114

Predicting the knowledge-recklessness distinction in the human brain

Iris Vilares
, Michael J. Wesley
, Woo Young Ahn
, Richard J. Bonnie
, Morris Hoffman
, Owen D. Jones
, Stephen J. Morse
, Gideon Yaffe
, Terry Lohrenz
, P. Read Montague

Producción científica: Article › revisión exhaustiva

36 Citas (Scopus)

Resumen

Criminal convictions require proof that a prohibited act was performed in a statutorily specified mental state. Different legal consequences, including greater punishments, are mandated for those who act in a state of knowledge, compared with a state of recklessness. Existing research, however, suggests people have trouble classifying defendants as knowing, rather than reckless, even when instructed on the relevant legal criteria. We used a machine-learning technique on brain imaging data to predict, with high accuracy, which mental state our participants were in. This predictive ability depended on both the magnitude of the risks and the amount of information about those risks possessed by the participants. Our results provide neural evidence of a detectable difference in the mental state of knowledge in contrast to recklessness and suggest, as a proof of principle, the possibility of inferring from brain data in which legally relevant category a person belongs. Some potential legal implications of this result are discussed.

Idioma original	English
Páginas (desde-hasta)	3222-3227
Número de páginas	6
Publicación	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volumen	114
N.º	12
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619385114
Estado	Published - mar 21 2017

Nota bibliográfica

Funding Information:
We thank Frank Tong for useful discussions and all of the members from the Human Neuroimaging Lab, especially Alec Solway, Andreas Hula, and Sébastien Hétu, for helpful comments and discussion. We are also thankful for the support of the Wellcome Trust, the Kane Foundation, the Brown Foundation, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This study was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to Vanderbilt University, with a subcontract to Virginia Tech. Its contents do not necessarily represent official views of either the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation or the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience (www.lawneuro.org).

Financiación

We thank Frank Tong for useful discussions and all of the members from the Human Neuroimaging Lab, especially Alec Solway, Andreas Hula, and S\u00E9bastien H\u00E9tu, for helpful comments and discussion. We are also thankful for the support of the Wellcome Trust, the Kane Foundation, the Brown Foundation, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This study was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to Vanderbilt University, with a subcontract to Virginia Tech. Its contents do not necessarily represent official views of either the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation or the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience (www.lawneuro.org).

Financiadores
Human Neuroimaging Lab
Brown Foundation
Author National Institute on Drug Abuse DA031791 Mark J Ferris National Institute on Drug Abuse DA006634 Mark J Ferris National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism AA026117 Mark J Ferris National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism AA028162 Elizabeth G Pitts National Institute of General Medical Sciences GM102773 Elizabeth G Pitts Peter McManus Charitable Trust Mark J Ferris National Institute on Drug Abuse
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Kane Foundation

ODS de las Naciones Unidas

Este resultado contribuye a los siguientes Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible

Peace justice and strong institutions

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

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10.1073/pnas.1619385114

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abstract = "Criminal convictions require proof that a prohibited act was performed in a statutorily specified mental state. Different legal consequences, including greater punishments, are mandated for those who act in a state of knowledge, compared with a state of recklessness. Existing research, however, suggests people have trouble classifying defendants as knowing, rather than reckless, even when instructed on the relevant legal criteria. We used a machine-learning technique on brain imaging data to predict, with high accuracy, which mental state our participants were in. This predictive ability depended on both the magnitude of the risks and the amount of information about those risks possessed by the participants. Our results provide neural evidence of a detectable difference in the mental state of knowledge in contrast to recklessness and suggest, as a proof of principle, the possibility of inferring from brain data in which legally relevant category a person belongs. Some potential legal implications of this result are discussed.",

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Predicting the knowledge-recklessness distinction in the human brain

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Nota bibliográfica

Financiación

ODS de las Naciones Unidas

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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