Week 4 : Torture, interrogation, and the role of neuroscience

Question 1

What is the United Nations Convention Against Torture primarily about?

Answer 1

It’s a statement by the world community against torture, defining it as any act intentionally inflicted to cause severe physical or mental pain or suffering to get information or a confession.

Question 2

Complete the sentence: Torture in neuroscience terms can be mapped onto concepts like ____, ____, ____ and ____.

Answer 2

Stress, stressors, pain, and anxiety.

Question 3

Who wrote a book arguing in favor of torture and what is its central premise?

Answer 3

Alan Dershowitz. The central premise is that torture is needed in some cases and a license from the President is required to carry it out.

Question 4

What are some historical reasons for employing torture?

Answer 4

To get confessions, to force compliance, and to break someone physically and mentally.

Question 5

What type of memory is generally targeted when torturing someone for information?

Answer 5

Long-term memory, extending over at least one sleep/wake cycle.

Question 6

What part of the brain is crucial for declarative memory?

Answer 6

Temporal lobe structures, especially the hippocampal formation.

Question 7

How is memory affected by sleep deprivation?

Answer 7

Memory functions decline in direct proportion to the amount of sleep deprivation.

Question 8

Who was responsible for writing memos that became law for sanctioning torture methods?

Answer 8

A mid-level lawyer named John Yoo.

Question 9

Complete the sentence: Stress consists of heightened arousal in the body combined with the perception of impending ____ and a lack of ____.

Answer 9

Noxious events, control.

Question 10

What effect does prolonged exposure to stress hormones have on the brain?

Answer 10

It damages brain regions involved in attention, memory, and mood regulation.

Question 11

What did Sonia Lupien’s study show about high levels of circulating stress hormones?

Answer 11

High levels caused the hippocampal formation to shrink and impaired long-term memory.

Question 12

What is the effect of acute administration of hydrocortisone on memory?

Answer 12

Memory performance declines to about 50 to 60% of normal controls.

Question 13

What happens to the psychological function of elite soldiers under severe stress?

Answer 13

Every class of psychological function is dramatically and substantially impaired.

Question 14

In the Rey–Osterrieth figure test, what was observed in combat soldiers who have been stressed?

Answer 14

Their ability to replicate the diagram after a delay was astonishingly poor compared to unstressed soldiers.

Question 15

Who coined the verb form ‘to waterboard’?

Answer 15

Alan Dershowitz

Question 16

What is the Trendelenburg position originally intended for?

Answer 16

For people suffering hyperprofusion of the brain to increase blood flow to the brain.

Question 17

Why is the Trendelenburg position considered dangerous?

Answer 17

It’s difficult to clear the airways, leads to pooling of fluid in the upper body, and disrupts normal blood recirculation.

Question 18

What is occluded in the waterboarding process?

Answer 18

The oropharynx

Question 19

What prevents coughing during waterboarding?

Answer 19

Inhaling is required for coughing, but doing so would lead to inhaling water

Question 20

What is the diving reflex?

Answer 20

An evolved reflex that prompts a breath when cold water is thrown on the face.

Question 21

What brain region is activated during dyspnoea?

Answer 21

The amygdala

Question 22

What is the technical term for the frantic search for air?

Answer 22

Dyspnoea

Question 23

What are some physiological consequences of chronic insomnia mentioned?

Answer 23

Shrunken hippocampi and poor memory.

Question 24

What can torturers be poor at detecting?

Answer 24

Lying

Question 25

What psychiatric condition is common among ex-torturers?

Answer 25

Moral or psychic injury

Question 26

What proportion of conversations involve individuals revealing personal information about themselves?

Answer 26

About 40%

Question 27

What is activated in the brain when witnessing someone else in pain?

Answer 27

The pain matrix

Question 28

Where was the study on self-induced dental pain conducted?

Answer 28

Switzerland

Question 29

What happens to posterior regions of the brain during intense dental pain?

Answer 29

Huge activation, focused on immediate reflexive survival.

Question 30

What part of the brain is associated with the pain matrix?

Answer 30

Midline cortices

Question 31

How did Abu Zubaydah react during waterboarding?

Answer 31

Became completely unresponsive, vomited food consumed ten hours earlier.

Question 32

What was the maximum time the fit, young male subject could hold his breath in 11 degrees C water?

Answer 32

23 seconds

Question 33

What did the commentator suggest as an alternative to “white tortures”?

Answer 33

Methods shown in the movie Marathon Man, such as dental drilling.

Question 34

What are the three components of pain?

Answer 34

Sensory, Motoric, Cognitive

Question 35

What does the pain matrix do when we see someone else in pain?

Answer 35

Activates reliably, quickly, and automatically.

Question 36

Who is Vasily Blokhin?

Answer 36

Chief torturer and executioner in Lubyanka under Stalin, estimated to have murdered more people individually than any other person.

Question 37

What did a study in Switzerland discover about people’s pain thresholds?

Answer 37

Volunteers estimated twice as much pain as they initially thought they could take.

Question 38

What was Bonaparte’s key point about torture?

Answer 38

It produces nothing worthwhile.

Question 39

What is the misinformation effect?

Answer 39

The misinformation effect refers to the impairment in memory for the past that arises after exposure to misleading information.

Question 39

What is a better alternative to torture for obtaining information, according to the information?

Answer 39

Use of language, as humans naturally reveal about 40% of personal information during conversations.

Question 39

Is the misinformation effect specific to humans?

Answer 39

No, it has been observed in a variety of human and nonhuman species.

Question 40

Misinformation can cause people to falsely believe they saw ________.

Answer 40

Details that were only suggested to them.

Question 40

True or false: People can express false memories with confidence and detail.

Answer 40

True

Question 41

Which brain regions are implicated in the misinformation effect?

Answer 41

The hippocampus and a few other cortical regions.

Question 42

What other distortions can creep into memory aside from misinformation?

Answer 42

e.g Inference-based processes.

inference-based processes in the context of memory distortions refer to the cognitive mechanisms where individuals fill in gaps in their memories based on existing knowledge, beliefs, or expectations. This can lead to the creation of false memories or the distortion of existing ones. In essence, the mind uses inference to “complete the picture” when details are missing or ambiguous. These are sometimes automatic processes that occur without conscious effort, which makes them particularly prone to introducing errors into memory.

“Infer the Gaps: Mind’s Auto-Paint for Memory!”

Here, “Infer the Gaps” captures the essence of inference-based processes filling in missing details. “Mind’s Auto-Paint” denotes the automatic nature of this process, like an artist automatically filling in colors to complete a painting, which in this case represents your memory.

Question 43

.

Answer 43

.

Question 44

What is one evolutionary theory for why memory is malleable?

Answer 44

The “updating” seen in misinformation studies allows for the correction of incorrect memories.

Question 45

What is the Discrepancy Detection Principle (Tousignant et al. 1986) and when are changes in recollection most likely to occur based on this principle?

Answer 45

The Discrepancy Detection Principle states that recollections are more likely to change if a person does not immediately detect discrepancies between misinformation and memory for the original event. False memories can still occur even if a discrepancy is noticed.

“Detect or Deceive: Miss a Beat, Memories Cheat!”

In this mnemonic, “Detect or Deceive” encapsulates the principle’s focus on detecting discrepancies to avoid false memories. “Miss a Beat” indicates the risk involved when discrepancies go unnoticed. “Memories Cheat” suggests that even when discrepancies are noted, false memories can still occur.

Question 46

What effect does the timing between misinformation and the test have on subjects’ responses?

Answer 46

With a short interval between the misinformation and the test, subjects are less likely to claim that the misinformation item was in the event only.

Question 47

How effective are post-misinformation warnings in helping people resist misinformation?

Answer 47

Post-misinformation warnings are generally not effective once the misinformation has been processed and incorporated into memory. However, they may have some limited success depending on the accessibility of the misinformation.

Question 48

What role does cognitive resource availability play in misinformation susceptibility?

Answer 48

Misinformation effects are stronger when attentional resources are limited.

Question 49

Name at least two personality variables that are associated with greater susceptibility to misinformation.

Answer 49

Empathy and absorption are two personality variables associated with greater susceptibility to misinformation.

Question 50

What is the challenge in studying misinformation effects in non-verbal species?

Answer 50

The challenge is in finding ways to determine that misinformation has taken hold in species that are unable to explicitly say so.

Question 51

What effect does the timing of post-event misinformation have on its effectiveness?

Answer 51

Misinformation is more susceptible if it occurs later in the original-final test interval than if it occurs early in that interval.

Question 52

What is retrograde interference?

Answer 52

Retrograde interference refers to the phenomenon where new learning disrupts the ability to recall older information. Essentially, new memories interfere with the recall of older, previously-stored information.

Question 53

What was the central argument of McCloskey and Zaragoza (1985) regarding misinformation?

Answer 53

They argued that misinformation has no effect on the original event memory and merely influences the reports of subjects.

Misinfo Moves Mouths, Not Memory!

Question 54

What is the “source misattribution effect”?

Answer 54

“source misattribution effect” refers to the cognitive error where a person remembers the content of a memory but misattributes the source from which it originated. This could mean incorrectly recalling that you heard a piece of information from a friend when you actually read it in a book, or believing that an imagined event actually occurred.
The source misattribution effect can be influenced by suggestion. For example, external cues or leading questions can cause an individual to misremember the source of a piece of information or an experience. This is particularly relevant in legal contexts, where suggestive questioning can lead witnesses to misattribute the source of their recollections, potentially affecting the accuracy of their testimony.

Question 55

How do the memories of “real” and “unreal” events differ according to Schooler et al. (1986)?

Answer 55

The memories of “unreal” events are longer, contain more verbal hedges, more references to cognitive operations, and fewer sensory details than “real” memories.

Question 56

What nerve agent were the Skripals exposed to?

Answer 56

Novichok

Question 57

The use of Novichok is particularly concerning because it is a ________ organophosphate.

Answer 57

Rare and classified

Question 58

Most information about Novichok agents comes from who?

Answer 58

Dr. Vil S. Mirzayanov

Question 59

What are Novichok agents originally designed for?

Answer 59

They were developed as part of the Russian classified nerve agent program, FOLIANT.

Question 60

What is unique about binary Novichok agents in terms of legality?

Answer 60

Binary Novichok agents are unique in terms of legality because they can be produced by combining two less toxic substances, which might individually not be subject to strict legal controls. When these components are combined, they produce a toxic chemical that falls under the chemical weapons ban. This can potentially create a loophole in international law, as the precursors themselves may not be banned or as strictly regulated as chemical weapons, thus allowing entities to stockpile the precursors without immediately breaching conventions like the Chemical Weapons Convention.