We’re at AAA headquarters here in Washington DC. This is an incredibly eclectic group that ranges from hard-core neurophysiologists to lawyers. In the last session we heard from the CEO of one of the two private lie-detecting companies that purport to have successfully deployed fMRI–I’m pretty skeptical (as was a lot of the audience).
Here’s an interesting piece of data to come out of the meeting: the general public (think juries) tend to trust statements which include “neuroscience jargon” in contrast to those which don’t. So testimony with a neuroscience provenance could actually act to reduce the critical thinking of a jury.
Pretty worrisome.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 