Defendant race and neuropsychological response: an exploratory study

Scholars often highlight negative stereotyping and implicit bias as key mechanisms driving racial disparities in punishment, however these psychological processes present challenges for empirical observation and measurement. In our study, we investigate the relationship between race and neuropsychological response to a sample of booking photos of White and Black male defendants. Thirty participants were shown 500 photos of defendants from Minneapolis, MN in a laboratory setting. While viewing the photos, we collected and analyzed electroencephalograms (EEGs), which capture neurological activity. We examined four markers of brain activity known as event related potentials (ERPs), which have been associated in prior work with the processing of facial stimuli, racial bias and/or expectation violation. Our findings are mixed, but we find that images of White male defendants were linked with larger amplitudes on one ERP that has been associated with expectation violation and one ERP that has been associated with more “effortful” and “deep” processing of facial stimuli. Our study provides a preliminary and exploratory step towards incorporating these kinds of neurological data in the study of racial bias in sentencing and other criminal legal system outcomes.