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Emma Lowe
Dr. Billie Dziech & Professor Sue Bourke
Kids Who Kill
12 November 2015
Brainwashed
When it comes to the justice system and how we determine each persons fate, there are
so many factors that are considered and disputed about in each case. There have been a large
amount of articles and books written about these factors, especially when it comes to the brain
and the mind. In the book Brainwashed by Sally Satel and Scott D. Lilienfeld, Satel and
Lilienfeld discuss the potential pitfalls of interpretation introduced by brain imaging. One
pitfall they discuss is that the brain scans very rarely allow for the conclusion that a certain
structure causes a specific function. This is due to due the brain scans only providing
correlations. Then, in most fMRI experiments, there are subtraction techniques that are used,
which they explain do not necessarily work well with the questions that the subjects are being
asked. They also state that the brain is an ever-changing ecosystem crackling with
electrochemical energy from which our thoughts, emotions, and intentions arise. This seems to
simply be showing that the brain does not have specific parts that control a persons capacity to
think and feel. They also detail the importance behind the experimental design when it comes to
interpreting the brain scans, and fMRIs being an indirect method in which there is a delay of at
least 2 to 5 seconds the increase of oxygen-rich blood flowing through neurons and the activation
of these neurons. Lastly, Satel and Lilienfeld discuss how an analyst must deploy statistical
approaches in order to extract meaningful information from the noise, which has the possibility
of leading to inadvertent misconduct.

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Satel and Lilienfeld not only take time to describe these limitations of brain scans and
brain imaging in Brainwashed, but they also make it possible for the audience to understand how
brain-based deception that works in labs cannot safely be applied to forensic settings. One way
that they display this is by pointing out how lies work within the brain. They explain that, No
brain region uniquely changes activity when a person lies; each type of lie requires its own set of
neural processes. Due to this indefinite activity within the brain, it is very difficult and almost
impossible for psychology and the law to be linked together well in order to determine justice.
On top of this, it is detailed that a guilty brain does not have a specific signature or have definite
features to it, making it very difficult to link with the forensic settings.
As seen, Brainwashed displays multiple ways that deception is made possible, which are
difficult to use safely in a forensic setting. Satel and Lilienfeld explain how there are at least 112
subtle words in the English language for deception and how in social interactions, people admit
to lying at some point during one out of every 5 of these social interactions that last longer than
10 minutes. Overall, they have shown in their book how lying can be spontaneous or it can even
be rehearsed and memorized, which makes for different reactions and results in the brain,
causing brain scans to be a fairly unsafe way of determining justice if used in a forensic setting,
as there are no specific features for a guilty brain or for the way a brain functions when someone
is lying. So although some may claim that neuroscience can contribute to detecting any type of
deception, it is a much more difficult and unsafe to link brain scans to forensic settings.