Neuroscientific, Neuropsychological, and Psychological Evidence Comparably Impact Legal Decision Making: Implications for Experts and Legal Practitioners

Abstract

ABSTRACTNeuroscientific evidence is assuming an increasingly prominent role in criminal law, where it has considerable potential for affecting legal decision making. Our understanding of this effect is currently limited. Research initially suggested a significant impact of neuroscience on lay and legal decision making, but subsequent investigations have failed to replicate or extend these findings. The current study investigated the impact of several types of evidence in a novel criminal-sentencing paradigm that surveyed community participants (N = 896) using Amazon Mechanical Turk. No significant differences among neuroscientific, neuropsychological, and psychological evidence conditions—with or without images—were observed on mock jurors’ impressions of the evidence, sentencing decisions, or opinions of violence risk, recidivism, or culpability. These results suggest that our current understanding of the differential impact of neuroscientific and neuroimaging evidence on legal decision making may be oversimplified. An accurate understanding of this effect is imperative for researchers, practitioners, and legal professionals working with neuroscientific evidence as its prevalence continues to grow in legal decision making.