I found a part of the brain responsible for the sense of justice – Ghhauto: Russian top stories

21.09.2015 01:47

The scientists say that the decisions of the people is not so difficult to manage with the help of magnetic stimulation a specific area of ​​the brain responsible human ideas of justice.

People – the only beings capable to punish members of his company for misconduct. To make a decision about what kind of punishment should be applied in each case, it is necessary, first, to understand the level of gravity of the criminal guilt, and secondly, to assess the severity of the consequences of misconduct. The thing is how the human brain performs these two processes. The best candidate is responsible for a fair verdict to the area of ​​the brain is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, says “Gazeta.ru,».

This part of the brain has a complex cell to bind together diverse streams of information and to respond to them on the basis of several the original data.

Studies have shown that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex performs just such a “unifying” role in the performance of cognitive tasks (unrelated, however, with social interaction). In addition, this area of ​​the brain is activated when making human decisions based on norms of morality or law.

A team of US researchers led by Joshua Bakholttsa (Department of Psychology, Harvard University) tried to definitively resolve the question of exactly how the head brain processes information about the committed violation of moral or legal norms and determine what should be the punishment. It turned out that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex really is an area where the two streams of information – on the degree of guilt of the person and of the consequences of his actions – combined, after which the decision on punishment. However, most researchers struck by the fact that our ideas of justice, it turns out, can be influenced, and very simple way.

The researchers conducted an experiment. People were asked, first, to assess the degree of culpability of the offender abstract John, and secondly, to offer for every situation a corresponding punishment. A feature of the experiment was that the first group of subjects exposed to transcranial magnetic stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

The experiment showed that the effect on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain of people forced to offer more lenient punishment for crimes committed by John. It is important to note that the opinion of the people about the degree of guilt of the perpetrator has not changed – the subjects admitted guilt John, but sought to punish him more gently.

« This study gives us a chance to better understand how people make decisions related to the law – namely, a contribution to the process of making the different areas of the brain. We hope that this will help to build the basis for a better understanding of the causes of bias in decision-making and legal fix it », – said study co-author Owen Jones.