Bigenwald A. & Chambon V. (2019). Criminal Responsibility and Neuroscience: No Revolution Yet. Frontiers in Psychology: Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 10, 1406

Résumé :
Since the 1990’s, neurolaw is on the rise. At the heart of heated debates lies the recurrent theme of a neuro-revolution of criminal responsibility. However, caution should be observed: the alleged foundations of criminal responsibility (amongst which free will) are often inaccurate and the relative imperviousness of its real foundations to scientific facts often underestimated. Neuroscientific findings may impact on social institutions, but only insofar as they also engage in a political justification of the changes being called for, convince populations, and take into consideration the ensuing consequences. Moreover, the many limits of neuroscientific tools call for increased vigilance when, if ever, using neuroscientific evidence in a courtroom. In this article, we aim at setting the basis for future sound debates on the contribution of neuroscience to criminal law, and in particular to the assessment of criminal responsibility. As such, we provide analytical tools to grasp the political and normative nature of criminal responsibility and review the current or projected use of neuroscience in the law, all the while bearing in mind the highly publicized question: can neuroscience revolutionize criminal responsibility? Answering this question implicitly requires answering a second question: should neuroscience revolutionize the institution of criminal responsibility? Answering both, in turn, requires drawing the line between science and normativity, revolution and dialogue, fantasies and legitimate hopes.

Havron, N., Ramus, F., Heude, B., Forhan, A., Cristia, A., Peyre, H. & The EDEN Mother-Child Cohort Study Group (2019). The effect of siblings on language development as a function of age difference and sex. Psychological Science. 30(9), 1333-1343. doi:10.31234/osf.io/fgpmd

Résumé :
The number of older siblings a child has is negatively correlated with their verbal skills, perhaps due to competition for parents’ attention. The current study examined the role of siblings’ sex and age gap as moderating factors, reasoning that they affect older siblings’ tendency to compensate for reduced parental attention. We hypothesized that children with an older sister, especially with a large age gap, have better language abilities than those with older brothers. We reanalyzed data from the EDEN cohort (N = 1,154) and found that children with an older sister had better language skills than those with an older brother. Contrary to predictions, the age gap between siblings was not associated with language skills, and did not interact with sex. Results suggest the negative effect of older siblings on language development may be entirely due to older brothers, and invite further research on the mechanisms involved in this effect.

Communiqué de presse

Latimier, A., Kovarski, K., Peyre, H., Fernandez, L. , Gras, D., Leboyer, M. & Zalla, T. (2019). Trustworthiness and Dominance Personality Traits’ Judgments in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. doi:10.1007/s10803-019-04163-1

Résumé :
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social functioning, communication, and by the presence of repetitive behaviours and restricted interests. Abnormal processing of faces has also been described as a neuropsychological feature of ASD. We investigated the ability to judge two personality traits in adults with ASD in comparison to typically developed adults (TD). We used an eye tracking device to investigate the exploration of faces when participants judged the degree of trustworthiness and dominance of synthetic faces. In sum, we found that adults with ASD were as capable as TD adults to judge personality traits of face trustworthiness and dominance, which relied on similar exploration of the synthetic faces in the two populations.

Lebreton, M., Bavard, S., Daunizeau, J. & Palminteri, S. (2019). Assessing inter-individual differences with task-related functional neuroimaging. Nature Human Behaviour. 3, 897-905. doi:10.1038/s41562-019-0681-8

Résumé :
Explaining and predicting individual behavioural differences induced by clinical and social factors constitutes one of the most promising applications of neuroimaging. In this Perspective, we discuss the theoretical and statistical foundations of the analyses of inter-individual differences in task-related functional neuroimaging. Leveraging a five-year literature review (July 2013–2018), we show that researchers often assess how activations elicited by a variable of interest differ between individuals. We argue that the rationale for such analyses, typically grounded in resource theory, offers an over-large analytical and interpretational flexibility that undermines their validity. We also recall how, in the established framework of the general linear model, inter-individual differences in behaviour can act as hidden moderators and spuriously induce differences in activations. We conclude with a set of recommendations and directions, which we hope will contribute to improving the statistical validity and the neurobiological interpretability of inter-individual difference analyses in task-related functional neuroimaging.

Safra L, Chevallier C, Palminteri S. (2019), Social information impairs reward learning in depressive subjects: behavioral and computational characterization. Plos Computational Biology

Résumé :
Depression is characterized by a marked decrease in social interactions and blunted sensitivity to rewards. Surprisingly, despite the importance of social deficits in depression, non-social aspects have been disproportionally investigated. As a consequence, the cognitive mechanisms underlying atypical decision-making in social contexts in depression are poorly understood. In the present study, we investigate whether deficits in reward processing interact with the social context and how this interaction is affected by self-reported depression and anxiety symptoms. Two cohorts of subjects (discovery and replication sample: N = 50 each) took part in a task involving reward learning in a social context with different levels of social information (absent, partial and complete). Behavioral analyses revealed a specific detrimental effect of depressive symptoms, but not anxiety; on behavioral performance in the presence of social information, i.e. when participants were informed about the choices of another player. Model-based analyses further characterized the computational nature of this deficit as a negative audience effect, rather than a deficit in the way choices of others and rewards are integrated in decision making. To conclude, our results shed light on the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying the interaction between social cognition, reward learning and decision-making in depressive disorders.

Sidarus N, Palminteri S, Chambon V. (2019). Trading off the cost of conflict against expected rewards. Plos Computational Biology

Résumé :
Adaptive behaviour requires the continued monitoring of action and its outcomes, to detect conflicts and correct behaviour accordingly. Conflict is considered aversive, and is typically avoided: people may choose easier tasks, or be biased by external suggestions. Conflict has also been shown to reduce the perceived control over action outcomes, and alter the perceived valence of subsequent events. Yet, it remains unclear whether external information could influence goal-directed decision-making, and whether response conflict could impact instrumental learning. The present study investigated these questions by embedding irrelevant flankers within a reversal learning task, with intermixed free and instructed trials. Results showed that participants learned to adapt their choices to maximize rewards. Nevertheless, participants were still biased by flanker stimuli, and were more likely to choose to follow, than to go against, the flankers’ suggestions. The perceived cost of being in conflict with an irrelevant suggestion can sometimes trump the evaluation of internal value representations. Adapting computational models of reinforcement learning allowed us to assess the influence of response conflict on the decision and on learning. Modelling results showed that the cost of conflict was traded-off against expected rewards, such that conflict was avoided when evidence for the conflicting option was weak. Turning to the learning phase, we found that instructed choices were associated with lower learning rates than free choices. Learning rates were further reduced when there was conflict between instructions and subjective beliefs. However, there was no robust evidence that conflict between actions and external distractors influenced learning. Our results show that external information can interfere with value-based decision-making, but that only some types of conflict affect instrumental learning.

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