From the Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College, Dublin D02 PN40, Ireland.
QJM. 2018 Feb 1;111(2):73-78. doi: 10.1093/qjmed/hcx252.
Despite it being abhorrent and illegal, torture is sometimes employed for information gathering. However, the extreme stressors employed during torture force the brain away from the relatively narrow, adaptive range of function it operates within. Torture degrades signal-to-noise ratios of information yield and increases false positive discovery rates. As a discovery methodology, torture fails basic tests of veridical, reliable and replicable information discovery. Torture fails during interrogation because it is an assault on our core integrated, social, psychological and neural functioning. There is a need for a profound cultural shift regarding torture, recognizing that torture impairs, rather than facilitates, investigations and truth-finding. Rising to this challenge will increase operational effectiveness, eliminate prisoner abuse and torment, and aid veridical and actionable information gathering. Policy regarding prisoner and detainee interrogation need to be refocused as a behavioural and brain sciences problem, and not simply treated as a legal, ethical or philosophical problem. Getting the science, ethics and practice in line is a challenge, but it can and should be done.
尽管酷刑令人憎恶且违法，但有时仍会被用于获取信息。然而，酷刑中使用的极端压力会迫使大脑脱离其相对狭窄的适应功能范围。酷刑降低了信息产出的信噪比，并增加了假阳性发现率。作为一种发现方法，酷刑无法通过真实性、可靠性和可重复性的基本测试。酷刑在审讯中失败了，因为它对我们的核心综合的、社会的、心理的和神经的功能造成了侵犯。我们需要在酷刑问题上进行深刻的文化转变，认识到酷刑会损害而不是促进调查和寻找真相。迎接这一挑战将提高行动的有效性，消除对囚犯的虐待和折磨，并有助于真实和可操作的信息收集。有关囚犯和被拘留者审讯的政策需要重新定位为行为和脑科学问题，而不仅仅是作为法律、伦理或哲学问题来对待。将科学、伦理和实践统一起来是一项挑战，但这是可以做到的，也应该做到。
