Why Torture Doesn’t Work

Shane O'Mara

Besides being cruel and inhumane, torture does not work the way torturers assume it does. As Shane O'Mara's account of the neuroscience of suffering reveals, extreme stress creates profound problems for memory, mood, and thinking, and sufferers predictably produce information that is deeply unreliable, or even counterproductive and dangerous.

Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction Chapter 1. Torture in Modern Times Torture by Democracies in Modern Times Torture as an Interrogative Device in the Torture Memos Folk or Commonsense Explanations What Types of Evidence Are Admissible? What Types of Evidence Should We Consider? Kinds of Evidence: Standards for Decision Making Standards for Empirical Evidence Cargo Cult Science, Coercive Interrogation, and Torture Exploring the Counterfactuals Regarding the Efficacy of Torture Chapter 2. How the Brain Supports Memory and Executive Functions Stories from a Patient How Do Memories Become Consolidated in the Brain? The Frontal Lobes: Intention, Executive Function, Working Memory Brain Networks Supporting Memory The Fallibility of Memory Flashbulb Memories as an Example of the Inconsistency of Memory through Time Eyewitness Testimony How the Presence of a Group Can Distort the Memories of an Individual Chapter 3. Can We Use Technology to Detect Deception? Imaging the Working Brain Imaging the Exact Cognitive Contents of the Lying Brain: A Fool's Errand Lying in the Real World Why Are We So Bad at Detecting Lies? Limitations of Brain-Imaging Technology for Lie Detection Another Approach: Using Truth Serums Propensity to Lie during Interrogation Chapter 4. What Do Stress and Pain Do to the Brain? Chronic, Severe Stress Impairs Psychological Functioning Stress Induced by Cramped Confinement and Shackling Neurogenesis and Apoptosis: The Birth and Death of Brain Cells Stress Dramatically Impairs Memory, Mood, and Cognition in Combat Soldiers Social Isolation and Sensory Deprivation as Forms of White Torture Social Isolation and Solitary Confinement What Changes Occur in the Brains of the Tortured? Phobic Stressors What Happens in the Human Brain during the Experience of Threat and Fear? The Effects of Chronic Stress on Cognition, Subjective Well-Being, and Mental Health Chapter 5. What Does Sleep Deprivation Do to the Brain? Sleep-Deprivation Methodologies Cognitive Pathologies Induced by Sleep Deprivation Chapter 6. Drowning, Cooling, Heating, and Starving the Brain Simulated Drowning via Waterboarding Imaging the Breathing Brain Asphyxiating and Drowning the Brain Waterboarding and Carbon Dioxide Narcosis Your Mind on Ice: Cooling the Brain and Body Dietary Manipulation of Detainees-Cognitive and Mood Effects Chapter 7. Why Does a Torturer Torture? Regarding Distress in Others How Does an Empathy Gap Arise? The Compassionate Brain in Action What Should a Former Torturer Do Now? Chapter 8. Why Torture? Why Not Talk? The Psychology of Compliance Interrogation The Interview: Context and Consequences Virtual-Reality-Based Approaches Third-Party Observation Challenging Behavior and Applied Behavior Analysis A Socio-Cognitive Framework for Interrogation Empirical Work on Interrogation Practices A Menu of Some Interrogation Possibilities The Training and Role of the Interrogator References Brain, Behavior, Neuroscience, and Physiology Other Works on Torture Important Collections of Articles from a Psychological Perspective Field and Experimental Studies of Human Brain Functioning under Extremes of Stress Acknowledgments Index