Posts tagged evolution

Check it out: The first neurobiological model for third-party punishment Here’s a a very recent update to my last post on the Neurobiology of Punishment by Joshua W Buckholtz and René Marois, breaking down the events that take place in the brain when asked to make decisions regarding punishment. Of the five processes you have the frontal cortex (higher mental functions) the amygdala (emotional responses) and the intraparietal sulcus and temporal-parietal junction (interpreting the intent of others, thoery of mind). In the modern criminal justice system, judges and jury members – impartial third-party decision-makers – are tasked to evaluate the severity of a criminal act, the mental state of the accused and the amount of harm done, and then integrate these evaluations with the applicable legal codes and select the most appropriate punishment from available options. (…)   [via]    One of the key take aways is that: ..it’s assumed legal decision-making is purely based on rational thinking, research suggests that much of the motivation for punishing is driven by negative emotional responses to the harm. This signal appears to be generated in the amygdala, causing people to factor in their emotional state when making decisions instead of making solely factual judgments. Getting ahead of ourselves: glossy brain porn v. emotion   What happens if the jury is presented with neuroscientific evidence suggesting what may have caused the accused to offend, e.g., a brain scan showing a tumor? This may challenge the negative emotional response since it’s been reported that this type of evidence is so seductive to juries. >law & order, donk donk< Article here. [Img: Parts of the brain involved in third party punishment. (Rene Marois, Deborah Brewington/Vanderbilt University)]

Check it out: The first neurobiological model for third-party punishment

Here’s a a very recent update to my last post on the Neurobiology of Punishment by Joshua W Buckholtz and René Marois, breaking down the events that take place in the brain when asked to make decisions regarding punishment. Of the five processes you have the frontal cortex (higher mental functions) the amygdala (emotional responses) and the intraparietal sulcus and temporal-parietal junction (interpreting the intent of others, thoery of mind).

In the modern criminal justice system, judges and jury members – impartial third-party decision-makers – are tasked to evaluate the severity of a criminal act, the mental state of the accused and the amount of harm done, and then integrate these evaluations with the applicable legal codes and select the most appropriate punishment from available options. (…) 

 [via] 

  One of the key take aways is that:

..it’s assumed legal decision-making is purely based on rational thinking, research suggests that much of the motivation for punishing is driven by negative emotional responses to the harm. This signal appears to be generated in the amygdala, causing people to factor in their emotional state when making decisions instead of making solely factual judgments.

Getting ahead of ourselves: glossy brain porn v. emotion  

What happens if the jury is presented with neuroscientific evidence suggesting what may have caused the accused to offend, e.g., a brain scan showing a tumor? This may challenge the negative emotional response since it’s been reported that this type of evidence is so seductive to juries. >law & order, donk donk<


Article here.

[Img: Parts of the brain involved in third party punishment. (Rene Marois, Deborah Brewington/Vanderbilt University)]

Welcome to the first time a NYT review actually has me excited to read a book&#8230; and take a picture of it&#8230;beside a gin cocktail on my coffee table. Ok. That&#8217;s a lie, I&#8217;ve done that before. Robert Trivers, a biological theorist, writes about our biological need to lie, and calls deceit: &#8220;&#8230; a deep feature&#8221; of life, even a necessity, given genes’ brutal struggle to prevail. Our big brains and communication skills make us master dissemblers. Even before we can speak, Trivers notes, we learn to cry insincerely to manipulate our caregivers. As adults, we engage in “confirmation bias,” which makes us seize on facts that bolster our preconceptions and overlook contradictory data. We wittingly and unwittingly inflate the qualities of ourselves and others in our religious, political or ethnic group. We denigrate those outside our in-group as well as sexual and economic rivals. Lying to survive. From little lies you tell everyday just to get by, rising all the way up to political/ wide spread social brainwashing, this sounds like my jam. And something else about this resonates -and I have no idea why: Trivers is not an elegant stylist like Dawkins, Wilson or Pinker. His technical explanations can be murky, his political rants cartoonishly crude. But Trivers’s blunt, unpolished manner — which I assume is not feigned — makes me trust him more than some slicker writers. (I think you guys get it.) Robert Trivers, everyone, get to know him.

Welcome to the first time a NYT review actually has me excited to read a book… and take a picture of it…beside a gin cocktail on my coffee table. Ok. That’s a lie, I’ve done that before. Robert Trivers, a biological theorist, writes about our biological need to lie, and calls deceit:

“… a deep feature” of life, even a necessity, given genes’ brutal struggle to prevail.

Our big brains and communication skills make us master dissemblers. Even before we can speak, Trivers notes, we learn to cry insincerely to manipulate our caregivers. As adults, we engage in “confirmation bias,” which makes us seize on facts that bolster our preconceptions and overlook contradictory data. We wittingly and unwittingly inflate the qualities of ourselves and others in our religious, political or ethnic group. We denigrate those outside our in-group as well as sexual and economic rivals.

Lying to survive. From little lies you tell everyday just to get by, rising all the way up to political/ wide spread social brainwashing, this sounds like my jam. And something else about this resonates -and I have no idea why:

Trivers is not an elegant stylist like Dawkins, Wilson or Pinker. His technical explanations can be murky, his political rants cartoonishly crude. But Trivers’s blunt, unpolished manner — which I assume is not feigned — makes me trust him more than some slicker writers.

(I think you guys get it.) Robert Trivers, everyone, get to know him.

Why Older Women Lust

In other words, despite the girls-gone-wild image of promiscuous college women, it is women in their middle years who are America’s most sexually industrious.


To test this theory, Buss and his students asked 827 women to complete questionnaires about their sexual habits. And, indeed, they found that women who had passed their peak fertility years but not quite reached menopause were the most sexually active. This age group — 27 through 45 — reported having significantly more sex than the two other age groups in the study, 18 through 26 and 46 and up. Women in their middle years were also more likely than the younger women to fantasize about someone other than their current partner. The new findings are consistent with those of an earlier Buss paper, from 2002, which found that women in their early 30s feel more lustful and report less abstinence than women in other age groups. In both studies, these findings held true for both partnered and single women, meaning that married women in their 30s and early 40s tend to have more sex than married women in their early 20s; ditto for single women. Also, whether the women were mothers didn’t matter. Only age had a strong affect on women’s reported sexual interest and behavior. (mas)

The Neuroscience of Distance and Desire

The way we see the world can be distorted by the way we feel and think about it. (…) objects that we want or like appear closer to us than they actually are (…) the authors argue that these types of distortions are an important part of social life. They help motivate us to pursue those goals that are particularly desirable, and encourage us to not pursue those goals that might be particularly difficult to attain. The logic here is simply that energy is a limited resource, and over evolutionary time the individuals who have been most successful have been those who directed their energy towards goals that would either benefit them the most or that would not come at too high a risk.

The closer an object appears, the more obtainable it seems. The more obtainable it seems, the more likely we are to go for it. Likewise, the more challenging a goal appears (a mile run when you’re out of shape) the more distant it will seem. (…)

In sum, the things that we want will be perceived as relatively closer and more obtainable and energize action geared towards their acquisition. (…)

— Piercarlo Valdesolo, The Neuroscience of Distance and Desire, Scientific American, June 15, 2010

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