tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post1961142202419817634..comments2024-03-14T23:52:09.893-07:00Comments on The Neurocritic: The Not So Seductive Allure of Colorful Brain ImagesThe Neurocritichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08010555869208208621noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-89506587436624995892012-12-22T12:03:33.426-08:002012-12-22T12:03:33.426-08:00Dr. Farah - Thanks for taking the time to comment....Dr. Farah - Thanks for taking the time to comment. I'll certainly look forward to reading your paper when it's available. It seems to me that there must be a reason for the glut of "your brain on ____" news reports for a number of years now. Maybe the correct population to study is media content editors!<br /><br />I think it would be an interesting project to literally look at this search in <a href="http://bit.ly/VWyspE" rel="nofollow">Google News</a>. Some of the articles do have brain images but a lot of them don't. So it's important to also look at the language used.The Neurocritichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08010555869208208621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-14842663107682208022012-12-21T06:28:27.982-08:002012-12-21T06:28:27.982-08:00Allow us to chime in! First, with our thanks to N...Allow us to chime in! First, with our thanks to Neurocritic and his commentators for this great discussion. Second, with some comments of our own.<br /><br />We agree: Null results are hard to interpret. There might be a true effect of fMRI on the credibility of scientific reasoning that is just very, very small or fragile, and hence not reliably observed.<br /><br />We also agree: One cannot base an argument on unpublished data… Our data were mentioned only in passing, along with others’ published and in press data. The focus of our essay was on how little evidence there is for the effect, rather than how much evidence there is against it, as well as on interpretational problems with the small amount of evidence for the effect. (BTW, we have no problems w Weisberg’s study – it’s just not relevant to brain images per se.)<br /><br />We’ll share our longer empirical paper as soon as it’s ready to circulate. (We asked the editor about the suitability of a 3-experiment paper on this topic for Perspectives in Psychological Science and she said no thanks but invited an essay on the topic, which is how the short paper under discussion came to be.)<br /><br />So, to the bottom line: Is there no effect of fMRI on judgments of reasoning? A very small or fragile one? Or, is there, in McCabe and Castel’s words, “a particularly powerful persuasive influence on the perceived credibility of cognitive neuroscience data?” As best we can tell, based on considerations laid out in our essay (and elaborated in the paper we are currently writing), the effect is either nonexistent or negligibly small; the third possibility seems extremely unlikely. And when scientists say things like “IMO the effect seems both real, and hard to produce in the lab,” we think it’s time to say “Could be, but what makes you think so?”<br /><br />-- Martha and CayceMartha Farahnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-80677314552302753242012-12-13T13:57:38.938-08:002012-12-13T13:57:38.938-08:00So, to amplify on my tweet, I think it's very ...So, to amplify on my tweet, I think it's very hard to measure a construct like the convincingness of an explanation in the lab, especially when you have to do this by asking people to make an explicit judgment. If only there were some neural correlate of being convinced that we could measure!<br /><br />Seriously, though. One way to test this "in the wild," would be to do a simple A/B marketing test for a cognitive fitness product. One advertisement would claim that, for example, practicing the N-back task has been shown to improve performance on IQ tests. The other would claim that training on the same task enhances activity in brain regions associated with higher IQ scores. Then your DV is just how many click-throughs you get for each ad. J Zevinhttp://themagnetisalwayson.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-77169583095127477432012-12-09T01:48:09.168-08:002012-12-09T01:48:09.168-08:00When I referred to the studies by Weisberg et al.,...When I referred to the studies by Weisberg et al., 2008, McCabe & Castel, 2008, but also Keehner, Mayberry & Fischer, 2011, Psychon Bull Rev, I tried to emphasize that the effects were rather small, sometimes present in subgroups only, and did not support the exaggerated claims some inferred from the headlines.<br /><br />However, when colleagues now fail to replicate the findings in this particular case, this does not mean that the effect was not there several years ago. For example, there has been an increase in critical reports on fMRI in public as well as expert media. If subjects are more likely to learn that fMRI interpretations have to be taken with care now than five years ago, this could diminish the (anyway small) "seductive" effect.<br /><br />I also remember some research ethics classes, by the way, where talking about unpublished data was considered as problematic, too. Some journals actually threaten to refuse a paper when the finding was already communicated before or during the peer review process.Stephan Schleimhttp://www.schleim.infonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-86870324303773825862012-12-08T06:01:33.540-08:002012-12-08T06:01:33.540-08:00This gives me so many ideas for experiments for my...This gives me so many ideas for experiments for my research methods class. Thanks!Kat Hooperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16960395513096788865noreply@blogger.com