JUDGING ANTIGONE IN OLD AGE: (NEURO)PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Abstract

Although medicine, psychology and law have a long history behind them (Frank, 1930; Kapardis, 2009), and several issues may emerge at the interface of these scientific fields, new specific disciplines have been created to fill the research gap, such as legal psychology and forensic psychology (Taylor, 2019). In this direction, forensic neuropsychology combines not only psychometric testing, but also interviews, behavioral observations, and record reviews as additional sources of information for answering cognitive functioning questions in legal and forensic settings (Fink, 2007). Additionally, the emergence of a new promising interdisciplinary field, neurolaw, explores how neuroscience and advanced techniques can be used in the legal system (Meynen, 2014; van Dongen & Franken, 2019). Although there are still a plethora of topics that are not adequately described and need further research in neuropsychology, several attempts have been made to collect data for different research questions linked to this complex field (Canter & Žukauskiene, 2019). Methods and protocols regarding the processes of criminal profiling, the examination of cognitive biases in legal decision making, interrogations and confessions, detection of deception, eyewitness memory and false memories-distortions, cognition and emotions of child witnesses, and competence to stand trial, are still not clear (Bornstein & Miller, 2016; Brewer & Douglass, 2019).