Effective connectivity and criminal sentencing decisions: dynamic causal models in laypersons and legal experts.

ABSTRACT: This magnetic resonance imaging study is designed to obtain relevant implications for criminal justice and explores the effective connectivity underlying expertise. Laypersons and experts considered sentences for remorseful and remorseless defendants, respectively, with and without mitigation, in hypothetical murder cases. Two groups revealed no differential activation. However, dynamic causal modeling analysis found distinct patterns of connectivity associated with subjects' expertise and mitigating factors. In sentencing for remorseful defendants, laypersons showed increased strength in all bidirectional connections among activated regions of Brodmann area (BA) 32, BA23, the right posterior insula, and the precuneus. In contrast, legal experts sentenced based on mitigation reasoning, sho

SUBMITTER: Asamizuya T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9528897 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature