April 20th, 2017
New Study Claims Criminals can be Identified by Brain Scans 新研究宣稱腦部掃瞄能辨認罪行‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥‥p. 1
New Study Claims Criminals can be Identified by Brain Scans by Jason Grenier, special correspondent Scientists have found evidence that different things are happening in the brains of people who break the law on purpose, compared to those who do so by accident. Consider two people. One cheated on his taxes by not declaring some income. The other intended to file his taxes honestly, but he forgot to report pay he received for a couple of days of part-time work. Both of them broke the law, yet only one did so intentionally. A court of law would likely treat the two individuals in the above situation quite differently. One principle of justice is that a person having the intent to commit a crime makes it a more serious matter. Such individuals are usually punished more harshly than people who unknowingly break the law. New scientific evidence could be seen as providing support for this flexible approach to dealing with criminal behaviors. Of course, scientists can’t study criminals at the actual moments they are committing real crimes. Instead, researchers asked forty people to participate in a laboratory study involving risks and rewards. Each participant was asked to carry an imaginary suitcase across a border in exchange for a reward. In some cases, the participants were told the suitcase would contain illegal drugs. In other cases, it was less clear to the participants exactly what would be in the suitcase. The experiment conditions also allowed the scientists to vary the likelihood that a participant’s bag would be checked at the border by a customs inspector. In other words, the level of risk could be adjusted so participants would be more or less likely to get caught transporting illegal drugs. The experiment used medical technology to scan and compare participants’ brains. The computer-enhanced images revealed that brain activity was different depending on the conditions in each situation. Most interesting to researchers was that whenever people meant to break the law, their brains showed similar patterns.
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