(September 16, 2015) Juries
in criminal cases typically decide if someone is guilty, then a judge
determines a suitable level of punishment. New research confirms that these two
separate assessments of guilt and punishment – though related — are calculated
in different parts of the brain. In fact, researchers found that they can
disrupt and change one decision without affecting the other.
New work by researchers at Vanderbilt University and Harvard
University confirms that a specific area of the brain, the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex, is crucial to punishment decisions. Researchers predicted
and found that by altering brain activity in this brain area, they could change
how subjects punished hypothetical defendants without changing the amount of
blame placed on the defendants.
“We were able to significantly change the chain of
decision-making and reduce punishment for crimes without affecting
blameworthiness,” said René Marois, professor and chair of psychology at
Vanderbilt and co-principal author of the study. “This strengthens evidence
that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex integrates information from other parts
of the brain to determine punishment and shows a clear neural dissociation
between punishment decisions and moral responsibility judgements.”