Review: Incognito

Incognito ties some interesting studies and anecdotes about human cognition together with opinions and hypotheses that are at times cringeworthy. The most problematic part of the book is Eagleman’s set of proposed reforms for the criminal justice system, which range from prefrontal cortex training for offenders to the suggestion that teenagers might be deserving of harsher physical punishment because their brains are still malleable. Here, Eagleman is guilty of the same simplistic, reductionist thinking that he later reminds us not to apply when dealing with high complexity systems.

Leaving aside all the other issues with his proposals, two points. First, any form of criminal justice impacts not only the population of offenders. Deterrent effects on would-be offenders, perception of fair treatment, and even impact on society as a whole need to be considered (as an extreme example of the latter, we can all imagine that a society that administers public crucifixions is shaped by that practice, irrespective of its impact as a deterrent).

Second, our sense of right and wrong is deeply informed by everything that happens around us: what our parents tell us, what our peers tell us, what the media tell us, and what’s actually going on. Would we recommend applying Eagleman’s “prefrontal cortex training” to a child soldier in an environment where violence is normalized? Of course not: we would argue that our priority should be to take the child out of a bad environment, and to address the root causes. Then we should also be careful to understand the micro-environments that exist within society, due to a history of racial and gender inequality, failed drug policies, and poverty.

Now, imagine an approach like the one Eagleman proposes being applied to, for example, the school-to-prison pipeline that exists in the United States and predominantly impacts children of African-American background. Will those teenagers be helped by harsher punishment because their brains still have the neuroplasticity to learn? Of course not – that will only further reinforce broken trust, and normalize “might makes right” as the standard of social behavior.

Where Eagleman writes about societal issues, he is out of his depth, and his suggestions come across as naive at best and dangerous at worst. That doesn’t render the whole book ineffective. He is a persuasive writer, the science is interesting, and some of his conceptual vocabulary (“team of rivals”, “alien/zombie systems”) is very well-chosen to bring his points across. Overall, the book is a light read, and those who have ventured into the depths of neuropsychology even a little bit will find much of it to be familiar.