Prove neuro-psicologiche di verità penale

[Autom. eng. transl.] Various actors contribute to the forensic reasoning from which the judicial decision follows: investigators, judges, parties, witnesses, experts. The latter, in particular, offer the judging body a specific knowledge of the facts subject to judgment of which the former has no knowledge, knowing that it enters in all respects in the probative reasoning. The contribution illustrates the different inferential phases that make up judicial reasoning, highlighting the risks of cognitive errors that can be inserted in the decision-making process, in cases where spontaneous, intuitive thinking prevails over the formal one. A profile of particular interest, in this sense, is offered by the use of the so-called maxims of experience, which conceal dangerous unknowns, since they could be the result of empirically unverified generalizations. Special attention in the procedural field currently deserves the neuroscientific tests, in particular in cases in which the capacity to understand and to want of the accused is under discussion. They are based on objective methods that can improve the investigation of the biological bases of mental disorder and criminal behavior, while raising inescapable questions about their role in the criminal trial and their impact on the judge's decision-making process.