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Seeing Is Believing: The Effect of Brain Images on Judgments of Scientific Reasoning
Abstract
Brain images are believed to have a particularly persuasive influence on the public perception of research on cognition. Three experiments are reported showing that presenting brain images with articles summarizing cognitive neuroscience research resulted in higher ratings of scientific reasoning for arguments made in those articles, as compared to articles accompanied by bar graphs, a topographical map of brain activation, or no image. These data lend support to the notion that part of the fascination, and the credibility, of brain imaging research lies in the persuasive power of the actual brain images themselves. We argue that brain images are influential because they provide a physical basis for abstract cognitive processes, appealing to people's affinity for reductionistic explanations of cognitive phenomena.
... The concept of neuromyth refers to a series of misconceptions or baseless beliefs that arise from the wrong interpretation of neuroscience research results and its application in education or other contexts (OECD, 2002). Several factors related to the emergence and proliferation of neuromyths have been identified: differences in training and technical language between the educational and neuroscientific fields , limited access to peer-reviewed scientific journals (Ansari and Coch, 2006), overgeneralization from neuroscience studies with individual neurons to educational policy (Goswami, 2006), and preference for explanations that seem based on scientific evidence even though there is no evidence in this regard (McCabe and Castel, 2008;Weisberg et al., 2008). ...
... Besides neuromyths, we also need to be mindful of the convincing power that neuroscientific findings may have on public opinion. Neuroscientists and educational professionals alike have warned us for the "seductive allure of neuroscience explanations" (e.g., McCabe and Castel, 2008;Weisberg et al., 2008) that may sway people's opinion about political, legal, or educational issues or trap them into buying something that they do not need. Although others have shown that the seductive allure of neuroscience is not as ubiquitous as initially suggested , there are circumstances under which individuals are particularly prone to biased judgment when presented with neuroscientific evidence. ...
En los últimos años se ha visto un creciente interés por el conocimiento relacionado con el cerebro y las neurociencias. Esto ha llevado a que se genere una importante cantidad de investigaciones y que el contexto propicie el surgimiento de creencias erróneas.
Estudios realizados en varios países convergen en el hallazgo de que el conocimiento sobre neurociencias en todos los campos de conocimiento es pobre y en algunos estudios en Europa y América del Sur, incluso se observó que un mayor interés en neurociencia predice (paradójicamente) una mayor creencia en neuromitos, combinada con una incapacidad para juzgar información como real o pseudocientífica.
La brecha entre la neurociencia cognitiva y el aprendizaje sigue siendo muy amplia . Y una de las consecuencias de esta distancia es la propagación de mitos que en muchos casos cuentan con algún sustento científico pero que son resultado de una malinterpretación o descontextualización de los resultados de investigaciones.
Especialmente en el ámbito de la educación, la necesidad de incorporar recursos que permitan renovar la visión del aprendizaje ha favorecido el desarrollo de estas creencias erróneas, que se convierten en dogma y generan confusión sobre los aquellos aspectos que tienen una base científica y aquellos que deben ser refutados.
... -differences in education and vocabulary in pedagogy and neuroscience (Howard-Jones 2014), -different levels of analyzes carried out in both disciplines -from single neurons to international education policies (Goswami 2006), -limited availability of the results from original empirical research (e.g. paid access, or access only to a specific group of specialists), which favors increased reliance on media reports or interpretations of pseudoscientists (Ansari, Coch 2006), -lack of specialists and organizations specializing in both disciplines (Ansari, Coch 2006;Goswami 2006), -the attractiveness and ease of putting into practice explanations that are apparently based on neuroscience but have a strong marketing foundation (McCabe, Castel 2008;Weisberg et al. 2008), -the so-called media noise, which is evident in the fact that the media, often presenting new reports, omit important information (e.g. research methodology), do it in a simplified manner or provide information that is irrelevant, but of a marketing nature (Wallace 1993;Beck 2010;Pasquinelli 2012), -the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect, i.e. a psychological phenomenon in which unskilled people in some area of life tend to overestimate their skills in this area, while highly qualified people tend to underestimate their abilities (Kruger, Dunning 1999), -the so-called attitude of "neurorealism" (Racine, Waidman, Rosenberg, Illes 2006), in which people tend to have greater confidence in any results or publications that refer to, for example, research in the field of neurobiology -even if it is pseudoscientific or irrelevant to the topic at hand (McCabe, Castel 2008;Weisberg et al. 2008;Michael et al. 2013). An important fact also concerns the problem of internationality and cultural conditions. ...
... -differences in education and vocabulary in pedagogy and neuroscience (Howard-Jones 2014), -different levels of analyzes carried out in both disciplines -from single neurons to international education policies (Goswami 2006), -limited availability of the results from original empirical research (e.g. paid access, or access only to a specific group of specialists), which favors increased reliance on media reports or interpretations of pseudoscientists (Ansari, Coch 2006), -lack of specialists and organizations specializing in both disciplines (Ansari, Coch 2006;Goswami 2006), -the attractiveness and ease of putting into practice explanations that are apparently based on neuroscience but have a strong marketing foundation (McCabe, Castel 2008;Weisberg et al. 2008), -the so-called media noise, which is evident in the fact that the media, often presenting new reports, omit important information (e.g. research methodology), do it in a simplified manner or provide information that is irrelevant, but of a marketing nature (Wallace 1993;Beck 2010;Pasquinelli 2012), -the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect, i.e. a psychological phenomenon in which unskilled people in some area of life tend to overestimate their skills in this area, while highly qualified people tend to underestimate their abilities (Kruger, Dunning 1999), -the so-called attitude of "neurorealism" (Racine, Waidman, Rosenberg, Illes 2006), in which people tend to have greater confidence in any results or publications that refer to, for example, research in the field of neurobiology -even if it is pseudoscientific or irrelevant to the topic at hand (McCabe, Castel 2008;Weisberg et al. 2008;Michael et al. 2013). An important fact also concerns the problem of internationality and cultural conditions. ...
The article presents the results of research conducted among Polish teachers. Their aim was to check the prevalence of neuromyths in schools and kindergartens, and to identify predictors of both belief in neuromyths and the level of knowledge about the structure and functioning of the brain. The obtained results partially confirmed the reports from international studies. Neuromyths turned out to be very popular among Polish teachers, even despite the high level of basic knowledge in the field of neurobiology. The research also revealed a number of factors that determine the level of the above-mentioned knowledge. The influence of age, gender, seniority, workplace, interest in training in neuroeducation, earlier access to knowledge in the field of neurobiology or the use of neuromyths-based work methods in educational practice has not been confirmed. Abstrakt: W artykule zaprezentowano wyniki badań przeprowadzonych wśród polskich nauczycieli. Ich celem było sprawdzenie powszechności neuromitów w szkołach i przedszkolach oraz wskazanie predyktorów zarówno wiary w neuromity, jak i poziomu wiedzy dotyczącej budowy i funkcjonowania mózgu. Uzyskane wyniki częściowo potwierdziły doniesienia z międzynarodowych badań. Neuromity okazały się bardzo popularne wśród polskich nauczycieli, nawet pomimo wysokiego poziomu podstawowej wiedzy z zakresu neurobiologii. Badania uwidoczniły również szereg czynników, które warunkują poziom wyżej wskazanej wiedzy. Nie potwierdzono wpływu wieku, płci, stażu pracy, miejsca pracy ani zainteresowania dokształcaniem w problematyce neuroedukacji, wcześniejszym dostępem do wiedzy z zakresu neurobiologii czy stosowaniem w praktyce edukacyjnej metod pracy opartych na neuromitach.
... First, neuroscience, at least in its current state of research, cannot challenge the basic premise of criminal law that choosing to commit a crime is blameworthy (Slobogin, 2017). Second, neuroimaging and statistical analyses can be persuasive (McCabe & Castel, 2008), especially to the nonspecialist eye, but are based on the result of the scientists' manipulations, assumptions, and interpretations that should be made obvious. Consequently, it is the responsibility of the scientist expert witness to understand and explain the limitations of neuroscientific tools and take responsibility for their interpretation. ...
... It can be argued that neuroimaging can be disproportionately persuasive in relation to the actual findings (Baker et al., 2017). Past studies have explored the persuasiveness of neuroscientific claims with and without brain images with initial findings reporting higher persuasiveness for claims paired with images (McCabe & Castel, 2008). However, recent studies have not replicated the initial results and have shown that persuasiveness and overall judgment of the quality of information do not depend on the brain images but the prestige of neuroscience as a subject (Gruber & Dickerson, 2012;Hook & Farah, 2013). ...
Neuroscience can provide evidence in some cases of legal matters, despite its tenuous nature. Among others, arguing for diminished capacity, insanity, or pleading for mitigation is the most frequent use of neurological evidence in the courtroom. While there is a plethora of studies discussing the moral and legal matters of the practice, there is a lack of studies examining specific cases and the subsequent applications of brain knowledge. This study details the capital punishment trial of Kelvin Lee Coleman Jr., charged in 2013 with double murder in Tampa, Florida, to illustrate the extent that expert opinions – based on neuroimaging, neurological, and neuropsychiatric examinations – had an impact on the court’s decisions. The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. According to the comments of the trial’s jury, the most influential reason for not sentencing the defendant to death is the fact that during the incident was that he was under extreme mental and emotional disturbance. Other reasons were evidence of brain abnormalities resulting from neurological insult, fetal alcohol syndrome, and orbitofrontal syndrome contributing to severely abnormal behavior and lack of impulse control.
... Besides research subjects, ethical concerns should include other parties who pay for services provided by neuromarketing companies. It is proven that showing brain images has a powerful effect even within the scientific community [22]. In addition to scientists, the public shares the same fascination with brain images. ...
... In addition to scientists, the public shares the same fascination with brain images. Scientific descriptions look more persuasive if they are accompanied by brain images, even though it does not influence the validity of findings [7], [22]. ...
Neuromarketing showed up as a new interdisciplinary field that bridges neuroscience and marketing. A relatively young field that was born within the "neuroculture" matrix is covered with a veil of mystery and often misrepresented in the media as a powerful tool used by corporations to manipulate consumers' preferences, purchasing behavior, etc. In this paper, we have done an extensive literature review in order to put light on some dilemmas and take off the veil of mystery that surrounds neuromarketing. Firstly, (i) we discussed the definition and context in which neuromarketing emerged, (ii) important brain areas in consumer neuroscience which find their application in neuromarketing research, (iii) techniques used in neuromarketing (neuroimaging and non-neuroimaging), (iv) ethical issues in the field of neuromarketing (a part of neuroethics), and (v) limitations and recommendations for future development of neuromarketing.
... Different images may have varying effects on users' judgments. For example, after seeing an image of a brain, users are more likely to believe claims in certain scientific articles (Schweitzer, Baker, and Risko 2013;McCabe and Castel 2008) while images of smoking increases belief in messages in warning signals (Shi et al. 2017). Articles accompanied by alarming images (Knobloch et al. 2003) or ones that depict victimization (Zillmann, Knobloch, and Yu 2001) increase users' selective interaction with the articles. ...
Images are an indispensable part of the news we consume. Highly emotional images from mainstream and misinformation sources can greatly influence our trust in the news. We present two studies on the effects of emotional facial images on users' perception of bias in news content and the credibility of sources. In study 1, we investigate the impact of repeated exposure to content with images containing positive or negative facial expressions on users’ judgements of source credibility and bias. In study 2, we focus on sources' systematic emotional portrayal of specific politicians. Our results show the presence of negative (angry) facial emotions can lead to perceptions of higher bias in content. We also find that systematic portrayal negative portrayal of different politicians leads to lower perceptions of source credibility. These results highlight how implicit visual propositions manifested by emotions in facial expressions might have a substantial effect on our trust in news.
... For instance, fMRI has been routinely used to successfully measure implicit memory effects of priming (Schacter et al., 2007;Wig et al., 2005), repetition suppression (Martin & Gotts, 2005), masked priming (Henke, 2010;Reber et al., 2012), and associative recognition (for Review see Hannula & Greene, 2012), while event-related potentials (ERPs) have provided researchers with sensitive physiological markers that can dissociate implicit and explicit forms of memory (Ozubko et al., 2021;Paller et al., 2003;Rugg et al., 1998;Schacter et al., 2007;Woollams et al., 2008). But simply using neuroscience tools by itself does not necessarily solve the problem of isolating implicit memory from conflation by explicit memory (Hutzler, 2014;McCabe & Castel, 2008;Michael et al., 2013;Poldrack, 2006Poldrack, , 2011-for that, convergence of neuroscience tools and more sophisticated behavioral paradigms are needed. ...
Non-conscious processing of human memory has traditionally been difficult to objectively measure and thus understand. A prior study on a group of hippocampal amnesia (N = 3) patients and healthy controls (N = 6) used a novel procedure for capturing neural correlates of implicit memory using event-related potentials (ERPs): old and new items were equated for varying levels of memory awareness, with ERP differences observed from 400 to 800 ms in bilateral parietal regions that were hippocampal-dependent. The current investigation sought to address the limitations of that study by increasing the sample of healthy subjects (N = 54), applying new controls for construct validity, and developing an improved, open-source tool for automated analysis of the procedure used for equating levels of memory awareness. Results faithfully reproduced prior ERP findings of parietal effects that a series of systematic control analyses validated were not contributed to nor contaminated by explicit memory. Implicit memory effects extended from 600 to 1000 ms, localized to right parietal sites. These ERP effects were found to be behaviorally relevant and specific in predicting implicit memory response times, and were topographically dissociable from other traditional ERP measures of implicit memory (miss vs. correct rejections) that instead occurred in left parietal regions. Results suggest first that equating for reported awareness of memory strength is a valid, powerful new method for revealing neural correlates of non-conscious human memory, and second, behavioral correlations suggest that these implicit effects reflect a pure form of priming, whereas misses represent fluency leading to the subjective experience of familiarity.
... The scientific errors bring awareness that the illustrations are not free from mistakes and can lead to erroneous scientific conceptions. As happens often with other realm of illustrations that depicts scientific entities and phenomena (Stocklmayer & Treagust, 1994;McCabe & Castel, 2008;Andreu-Sanchéz & Martín-Pascual, 2022), the illustrations of Franklin's kite experiment studied in this paper presented serious errors regarding the transmission of electricity, the role of conductors and insulators and the protection of the experimenter. The illustrations can be used as counter-examples in classroom to show that although they sell the amateurship and the unexpectedness of the experiment, it was not the product of an amateur at all. ...
In 1752, the American polymath Benjamin Franklin supposedly flew a kite near the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to confirm that lightning had the same properties of common electricity that electrical machines produced and Leyden jars served to store. Illustrations, vignettes and paintings frequently portray the famous experiment, showing Franklin, with a boy, flying the kite in an open field and amid a storm. Nonetheless, little is known or said about the elements of these illustrations and the reference the illustrators used to portray the experiment. This paper aims to discuss these matters in a thoughtful study of seven nineteenth-century illustrations depicting Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment. I will show that the account by Joseph Priestley in his The History and Present State of Electricity, published in 1767, influenced these illustrations. I indicate that due to this influence, the illustrations present several departures from Franklin’s original account, leading to a mistaken iconography of how the experiment took place. I conclude with a discussion on how this study can contribute to a better use and understanding of illustrations depicting scientific episodes in science classrooms.
... Moreover, as in other types of technical and scientific evidence involving a significant degree of expertise, it is important for judges to serve as gatekeepers to determine what is admissible, to instruct jurors on how to determine the appropriate weight to place on the evidence, and to ensure that the probativity of different forms of evidence is not outweighed by their potential prejudicial effects (43)(44)(45)(46). This role is particularly important in light of findings suggesting that jurors may overweigh the evidential value of brainbased evidence, in part because of the visual and intuitive appeal of brain images (47), although other studies have challenged these findings (48). ...
Many legal decisions center on the thoughts or perceptions of some idealized group of individuals, referred to variously as the "average person," "the typical consumer," or the "reasonable person." Substantial concerns exist, however, regarding the subjectivity and vulnerability to biases inherent in conventional means of assessing such responses, particularly the use of self-report evidence. Here, we addressed these concerns by complementing self-report evidence with neural data to inform the mental representations in question. Using an example from intellectual property law, we demonstrate that it is possible to construct a parsimonious neural index of visual similarity that can inform the reasonable person test of trademark infringement. Moreover, when aggregated across multiple participants, this index was able to detect experimenter-induced biases in self-report surveys in a sensitive and replicable fashion. Together, these findings potentially broaden the possibilities for neuroscientific data to inform legal decision-making across a range of settings.
... Weisenberg and colleagues note that neuroscience may have a "seductive allure" to provide explanations for behavior and personal responsibility not fully supported by current science [38]. The presence of neuroimaging without any additional information has been found to make scientific claims more convincing [39], though it has been argued that there is not enough empirical evidence to show neuroimages significantly bias perceptions of scientific validity [40]. Although neuroimaging has significant potential value in informing the diagnostic process, how that aids the legal system remains controversial. ...
Dramatic advances in neuroscience have improved physicians’ abilities to diagnose and manage neurological and psychiatric disorders for their patients. Alongside established modalities such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and functional MRI (fMRI), advanced neuroimaging technologies provide new tools for understanding normal human behavior and diagnosing neuropsychiatric disorders impacting human behavior. But the application of these novel technologies, designed to help patients in the treatment setting, to the forensic setting presents unique ethics challenges. Forensic psychiatry is a subspecialty in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied in legal contexts, and in specialized clinical consultations in areas such as risk assessment or employment. In contrast to the treatment setting where advancing the patient’s welfare is primary, the primary duty in forensic settings is to foster truth. Thus, an honest forensic opinion based on good science and evidence may not necessarily benefit the person being evaluated and could cause that person harm. Similarly, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology are applied to a growing number of clinical and forensic settings, bringing potential to transform how psychiatrists assess an individual’s risk for violence and risk for suicide. Despite this promise, however, these emerging technological advances present significant ethical dilemmas, medico-legal limitations, and the risk of misuse if applied unethically. In this chapter, recent neuroscientific advances in the fields of functional neuroimaging and AI “deep learning” algorithms are reviewed in detail along with the relevant legal and ethical framework, advantages, and potential drawbacks.
... As expected, irrelevant information with neuroscientific jargon were preferred by the participants, regardless of the quality of the underlying logic of the explanation. Other experiments have found the same effect (Fernandez-Duque, Evans, Christian, & Hodges, 2015;Weisberg, Taylor, & Hopkins, 2015), also using neuroimag ing (McCabe & Castel, 2008)-although the neuroimaging studies have low reproducibility rates (Schweitzer, Baker, & Risko, 2013). Pseudoscientific neuro-jargon is particularly effective for psychological explanations in comparison with irrelevant social science and natural science jargon (Fernandez-Duque et al., 2015;Weisberg, Hopkins, & Taylor, 2018), perhaps due to the authority ascribed to neuroscience when explaining behaviour (Racine, Waldman, Rosenberg, & Illes, 2010). ...
This article presents an integrative model for the endorsement of pseudoscience: the explanation-polarisation model. It is based on a combination of perceived explanatory satisfaction and group polarisation, offering a perspective different from the classical confusion-based conception, in which pseudoscientific beliefs would be accepted through a lack of distinction between science and science mimicry. First, I discuss the confusion-based account in the light of current evidence, pointing out some of its explanatory shortcomings. Second, I develop the explanation-polarisation model, showing its explanatory power in connection with recent research outcomes in cognitive and social psychology.
... A pesar del gran atractivo que puedan tener las supuestas observaciones de la actividad cerebral, ¿debería dárseles tanto crédito? Algunos autores han investigado la seducción que ejercen las evidencias neurocientíficas en el público, concluyendo que generalmente se da mayor valor científico a aquellos estudios que van acompañados de neuroimágenes (Weisberg et al., 2008, p. 475-476;McCabe & Castel, 2008). Incluso serían más poderosas cuando van acompañadas de una explicación del cerebro en términos naturalistas y reduccionistas (Gruber & Dickerson, 2012). ...
El progreso de la neuroeducación en los últimos años ha tenido incidencia en la comprensión actual de la educación. Como ciencia interdisciplinar, la neuroeducación ha aportado grandes ventajas sobre la descripción de los correlatos neurales en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, así como en la detección de los neuromitos. Sin embargo, sus aportaciones no están carentes de una revisión crítica desde la perspectiva filosófica que vaya más allá del cuestionamiento puramente neurocientífico sobre la validez de las evidencias. El objetivo de este artículo es señalar la necesaria aceptación crítica de los resultados de la neuroeducación para evitar un colonialismo neurocientífico como un reto al que la teoría de la educación debe enfrentarse.
Para ello, en primer lugar se justificará la introducción de la neuroeducación en el panorama educativo actual. En segundo lugar, se conceptualizará brevemente la neuroeducación y los neuromitos para poder después, a través de una metodología argumentativa y crítica, incidir en los factores de la aceptación de sus descubrimientos. En tercer lugar, para ejemplificar la aceptación crítica de estos, se analizarán las Inteligencias Múltiples de H. Gardner y su posible consideración como neuromito. Este análisis permitirá observar como no siempre las evidencias neurocientíficas, o falta de estas, son suficientes para considerar una teoría educativa peyorativamente como un neuromito. La discusión radica en la consideración de una falta de evidencia científica desde el diálogo interdisciplinar de la neuroeducación. A pesar del abierto debate sobre su consideración neurocientífica y sobre su utilidad a nivel pedagógico, las Inteligencias Múltiples están en sintonía con las consideraciones de las leyes educativas en los últimos años, las cuales han incidido de manera significativa en las competencias de aprendizaje, y en las metodologías y evaluaciones que comprendan al ser humano desde un punto de vista holístico, abriendo así la puerta al diálogo con otras ciencias.
... Studies reveal the persuasive power of brain scan images and neuroscience information on individual evaluations of the legitimacy of scientific claims. 408 Public education efforts can inform the public and help individuals better understand and interpret scientific claims. For example, Brainfacts.org provides resources designed to educate stakeholders about basic neuroscience principles and societal implications of neuroscience research and its applications. ...
... Although not as robust as the psychological misconceptions literature, neuromyths may be more pervasive and are often disseminated to consumers as brain-based research alongside images of the brain that lead the reader to more readily accept the claims as fact (McCabe & Castel, 2008). Hemisphericity and brain plasticity misconceptions promote the sale of brain-based learning strategies to unwitting educators and parents (Lindell & Kidd, 2011). ...
... Neuro-realism is the notion that neurological images (e.g., functional magnetic resonance images [fMRI]) bring an objectivity or realism to the topic that is not possible with psychological or behavioral theory (Racine et al., 2005). This notion was famously explored by McCabe and Castel (2008) who found that images of brain scans increased perceptions of credibility of related scientific research. Relatedly, neuro-essentialism is a reduction of complex human characteristics to the brain, or to interactions within the brain. ...
This article addresses the use of hype in the promotion of clinical assessment practices and instrumentation. Particular focus is given to the role of school psychologists in evaluating the evidence associated with clinical assessment claims, the types of evidence necessary to support such claims, and the need to maintain a degree of “healthy self-doubt” about one’s own beliefs and preferred practices. Included is a discussion of topics that may facilitate developing and refining scientific thinking skills related to clinical assessment across common coursework, and how this framework fits with both the scientist-practitioner and clinical science perspectives for training.
... Introspection is a qualitative difference between the mental and the physical processes and makes one feels as though one is made of two parts: mind and body (Descartes, 1641;Ryle, 1949). However, the vivid images of the brain "lighting up" during mental activity as revealed by fMRI research provides evidence that the mind is a physical phenomenon and much interests are captured to belief in psychological research when it contains information from neuroscience (McCabe and Castel, 2008;Preston et al., 2013). But when scientific explanations are weakly framed, they can actually bolster belief in supernatural and metaphysical explanations (Preston and Epley, 2009). ...
This review is on the concepts of life, living entity, information and consciousness from different fields
of science in search of interrelationships linking the phenomena in nature. The cell theory advanced
the understanding of cellular constituents of organisms but does not provide explanation for
considering cells as living entities‘. Darwinian evolution theory postulated that the current forms of
humankind are attained through stages of events superimposed upon random variations by natural
selection. The basic properties of life which are replicated are information varying through natural
selection. Homo sapiens are distinctive among other organisms due to accrued information and
learning abilities passed from one generation to another generation, not only due to the current
physical structures. However, a zygotic cell grows to form specialized and self-organized systems;
similarly, the universe emerges from a zero volume in the big bang theory and has evolved to form
order and self-organized systems. Cell theory lies in the realm of biology which is the science
studying nature from animated perspective while big bang theory is in the realm of cosmology and
astrophysics that are scientific fields studying nature from inanimate perspective. Ecology as a field
of science studying nature from both inanimate and animate perspectives is a discipline that could
reconcile the limitations in these two theories (cell theory and big bang theory). Order and disorder are
thermodynamically equivalent to anabolism and catabolism, respectively. Essentially, the non- cellular
expanding universe and the growing cellular organisms are exhibiting self-organizations as a basic
characteristic. Growth model could be used in studying cellular and non-cellular matters as expansion
of the universe and the growth of organisms are physically an increase in size per time unit hence, a
linking characteristic. Interdisciplinary research is highly recommended for advancing the
understanding of concepts of life, living entities and related concepts. This will form a strong
foundation for a unified theory of everything.
... Despite of these technical problems that are not known to many nonspecialists, displaying neuroimages of the brain has a strange effect on the minds of the audience, as noted by many researchers (Miller, 2008;Weisberg et al., 2008), which makes these images an objective fact difficult to refute. They seem to speak for themselves beyond what can be done by other means of display (McCabe and Castel, 2008), to the extent that they are sometimes described as the new version of an old theory (phrenology) that the features of a human skull reflect his personality (Uttal, 2001). This enables some researchers to identify regions responsible for economic skills, social values, or criminal behaviors, although there are still many questions in the scientific community about what the captured images of neurons in the brain really represent. ...
The aim of the study is to explore the interaction between finance and neurosciences, which is one of the emerging research areas since the beginning of the new millennium. After highlighting the underlying epistemological presuppositions of this new field of knowledge, the study reviews its most important characteristics compared with neoclassical and behavioral schools. In reference to an approach inspired by classical and contemporary Quranic exegesis of the verse ﴾ they should have had hearts to understand with ﴿ (Quran, s. 22, v. 46) distinguishing between the reason related to representation and cognition and that related to conduct and how to deal with problems in life. There can be degrees of uncertainty and interactions between reason and emotion. Community functioning between the heart and the brain takes precedence over the competition, survival of the fittest, and zero-sum game mechanisms. This new approach could allow finance to exploit neurosciences by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), with heart rate variability (HRV) to highlight the importance of reason and emotion in economic life beyond calculation. We need to shift how we think about emotion and how we feel about thought.
... Introspection is a qualitative difference between the mental and the physical processes and makes one feels as though one is made of two parts: mind and body (Descartes, 1641;Ryle, 1949). However, the vivid images of the brain ‗‗lighting up'' during mental activity as revealed by fMRI research provides evidence that the mind is a physical phenomenon and much interests are captured to belief in psychological research when it contains information from neuroscience (McCabe and Castel, 2008;Preston et al., 2013). But when scientific explanations are weakly framed, they can actually bolster belief in supernatural and metaphysical explanations (Preston and Epley, 2009). ...
Mushrooms are undeniably rich in nutritive and therapeutic compounds; nevertheless, they are
excellent bio-accumulators of hazardous substances in contaminated conditions. This study aims at
investigating the potential human health risk associated with the consumption of mushrooms from two
locations in Ibadan, Nigeria. The concentrations of Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Zn, Ni and Al in six species of
wild mushrooms collected from University of Ibadan Campus and Oki in Ibadan, Nigeria were
determined using Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. The mean concentration (mgkg-1
) of heavy metals
in the mushrooms ranged from (6.33 – 8.33) for Pb, (1.08 – 1.62) for Cd, (2.93 – 4.81) for Cr, (4.26 –
17.95) for Cu, (1.68 – 5.78) for Ni, (21.63 – 134.40) for Zn, (3.72 – 8.10) for Al. Lenzites betulina
recorded the highest concentration for most of the heavy metals studied (Cd, Cu, Ni, Zn, Al) while
Pleurotus ostreatus recorded the least concentration for most of the heavy metals (Pb, Cu, Ni, Zn).
The Estimated Daily Intakes of the heavy metals in the mushrooms were all within the PTDI limit set
by JECFA and WHO. The Target Hazard Quotient values of the heavy metals were all <1, however,
the hazard indices of the mushrooms were all >1, indicating health risk. The Carcinogenic Risk
values of Cd, Cr, and Ni exceeded the acceptable limit of 1E-04 as set by USEPA with the highest
range value (2.92 – 4.37E-03) recorded in Cadmium. Therefore, this study suggests that the
consumption of mushrooms collected from metal-polluted substrates increases carcinogenic and non-
carcinogenic health risk of mushroom consumers in the study locations.
... Images serve to document reality, providing proof of messaging and/or persuasive claims (Schill, 2012). In the scientific field, scholars found that the public rated neuroscience research higher in terms of the soundness of the scientific reasoning when the articles included brain imagery, possibly because they provide tangible evidence of the cognitive processes under study (McCabe & Castel, 2008). Moreover, when there is a contradiction between the content of verbal and visual messages, "We tend to believe what we see … The eye overrides the ear" (Schmuhl, 1990, p. 32). ...
Scholars have used the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to explain public opinion on a variety of policy issues and across venues. Recent work in the NPF has expanded the application of the framework beyond textual formats to accommodate policy narratives that are visual in nature. This article asks whether individuals respond differently to visual versus text‐based narratives. The research argues that visuals are more easily understood, dramatic, and memorable than text, suggesting that visual narratives may have a greater influence on policy attitudes. I explore these possibilities using Twitter narratives related to the Dakota Access Pipeline in the United States. Exposure to visual narratives significantly increased perception of issue importance, but contrary to expectations, visual narratives were no more effective at enhancing information recall, shifting attitudes, and encouraging activism than textual narratives. The article discusses possible reasons for these findings, the implications for narrative persuasion, and suggestions for future avenues of research.
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Chang, Katherine T., and Elizabeth A. Koebele. 2020. “What Drives Coalitions' Narrative Strategy? Exploring Policy Narratives around School Choice.” Politics & Policy 48(4): 618–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12367 .
Crow, Deserai A., Lydia A. Lawhon, John Berggren, Juhi Huda, Elizabeth Koebele, and Adrianne Kroepsch. 2017. “A Narrative Policy Framework Analysis of Wildfire Policy Discussions in Two Colorado Communities.” Politics & Policy 45(4): 626–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12207 .
Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Mark K. McBeth, and Paul L. Hathaway. 2011. “Narrative Policy Framework: The Influence of Media Policy Narrative on Public Opinion.” Politics & Policy 39(3): 373–400. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2011.00295.x .
... Neuro-realism is the notion that neurological images (e.g., functional magnetic resonance images [fMRI]) bring an objectivity or realism to the topic that is not possible with psychological or behavioral theory (Racine et al., 2005). This notion was famously explored by McCabe and Castel (2008) who found that images of brain scans increased perceptions of credibility of related scientific research. Relatedly, neuroessentialism is a reduction of complex human characteristics to the brain, or to interactions within the brain. ...
This article addresses the use of hype in the promotion of clinical assessment practices and instrumentation. Particular focus is given to the role of school psychologists in evaluating the evidence associated with clinical assessment claims, the types of evidence necessary to support such claims, and the need to maintain a degree of “healthy self-doubt” about one’s own beliefs and preferred practices. Included is a discussion of topics that may facilitate developing and refining scientific thinking skills related to clinical assessment across common coursework, and how this framework fits with both the scientist-practitioner and clinical science perspectives for training.
... Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson, and Gray (2008) found that novices and students rated bad explanations as being more satisfying when information irrelevant to the explanations was added (this finding was replicated by Michael, Newman, Vuorre, Cumming, & Garry, 2013, and extended by Fernandez-Duque, Evans, Christian, & Hodges, 2014, and Weisberg, Taylor, & Hopkins, 2015. Related results have been reported by Tal and Wansink (2014), Haard, Slater, and Long (2004), McCabe and Castel (2008), and Keehner, Mayberry, and Fischer (2011), but see Gruber and Dickerson (2012), Schweitzer, Baker, and Risko (2013), and Hook and Farah (2013). There is also evidence that the greater sense of understanding caused by adding irrelevant information to relevant information is independent of actual understanding (Ikeda, Shinji, Takahashi, Hattori, & Ito, 2013). ...
Polarization is rising in most countries in the West. How can we reduce it? One potential strategy is to ask people to explain how a political policy works—how it leads to consequences— because that has been shown to induce a kind of intellectual humility: Explanation causes people to reduce their judgments of understanding of the issues (their “illusion of explanatory depth”). It also reduces confidence in attitudes about the policies; people become less extreme. Some attempts to replicate this reduction of polarization have been unsuccessful. Is the original effect real or is it just a fluke? In this paper, we explore the effect using more timely political issues and compare judgments of issues whose attitudes are grounded in consequentialist reasoning versus protected values. We also investigate the role of social proof. We find that understanding and attitude extremity are reduced after explanation but only for consequentialist issues, not those based on protected values. There was no effect of social proof.
... One may ask what other factors might have affected participants' causality attributions, besides individuals' prior knowledge on temporal sequences of events and their implicit conceptions on the etiology of yet poorly characterized psychiatric diseases. For example, there is some literature on how brain plots nudge the scientific evaluation of lay people [23][24][25][26][27], but in the present study, we did not further investigate how different plots may alter brain and mind primacy. The brain plot we presented in addition to the simulated data was consistent across contexts, and it was solely presented in order to plausibly mimic and ensure consistency with conventional neuroimaging studies. ...
The science of human development informs our thinking about children and their development. The Brain Development Revolution asks how and why has brain development become the major lens for understanding child development, and its consequences. It describes the 1997 I Am Your Child campaign that engaged public attention through a sophisticated media communications effort, a White House conference, and other events. It explores the campaign's impact, including voter initiatives to fund early childhood programs and a national campaign for prekindergarten education, but also several missed opportunities. The study examines why brain development compels our attention, why we are – but shouldn't be – neurodeterminists, and the challenges of communicating developmental brain science. This book examines the framing of the brain development story, the selectivity of the messaging, and overpromising the results of early programs. Lastly, it discusses proposals for how science communication can be improved to better serve children and the public.
The emergence of neuroscientific methods has provided insights into the link between the activity of specific brain regions and behaviour. An emergence and rapid development of two new disciplines occurred; neurocriminology and neuropsychology. There have also been increasing attempts to use neuroscientific findings in courts of law to examine the existence of causal links between specific
features of brain structure or function and behaviour at the time of offending. Neuroscientific evidence is supposed to provide insight into individual decision-making and behaviour and to provide justification for the legal consequences of criminal behaviour, but despite rapid developments over the last two decades, neuroscientific methods (e.g., fMRI) still do not allow reliable conclusions to be drawn. Neuroscientific evidence is mainly used in courts to prove diminished sanity or insanity, and incapacity to understand the judicial processes. Images of brain activity give the impression of expertise, objectivity and accuracy, but this impression is often deceptive. The review of research in this paper shows that fMRI in particular, does not yet meet the minimum standards of admissibility of evidence
in courts of law. Indeed, its use is non-standardised, and its accuracy and reliability are unknown and questionable. Results of studies related to fMRI are often methodologically flawed and unverifiable, and the technique is not widely accepted as reliable and valid in the scientific community. For these reasons, neuroimaging has only an indicative value and no evidentiary value, and if the court accepts
the neuroscientific findings of experts as evidence, there is a high risk that the court’s decision is flawed.
[The article is written in the Slovene language]
[Published in the Journal of Criminal Investigation and Criminology, 2023, vol. 74, no. 2, 88–99.
Quante volte ci siamo imbattuti in dichiarazioni quali “l’emisfero cerebrale sinistro è quello logico, quello destro è quello creativo”, o in sensazionalistici titoli di giornali sulla scoperta dell’area cerebrale dell’amore, del linguaggio, o di chissà quale altra funzione mentale?
Oggigiorno, la maggior parte dei neuroscienziati prenderebbe le distanze da affermazioni così semplicistiche, affrettandosi a precisare che il cervello è più complesso di così. E tuttavia, la pratica di ‘mappare’ certe categorie psicologiche entro determinate aree neurali ha svolto, e forse svolge tuttora, un’importante funzione nell’organizzare e riorganizzare le nostre conoscenze sulla mente e sulla sua realizzazione fisica.
Ma cosa vuol dire che una funzione cognitiva viene “mappata” in un’area neurale? E poi, quali sono queste funzioni cognitive da mappare? E perché mapparle con aree (definite come poi?) anziché cellule, reti di aree, o altri insiemi di neuroni? I filosofi che affrontano domande simili hanno dato vita all’appassionante dibattito sull’Ontologia Cognitiva. Scopo di questo volume è presentare il dibattito, avvalendosi di tre esempi: la storia dell’area di Broca e quelle più recenti della ricerca correlati neurali delle emozioni di base nonché della cosiddetta “area facciale fusiforme”.
Approximately one in three people worldwide suffers from mathematics anxiety, with scholarly literature demonstrating that it has significant consequences for both individuals and wider society. While underlying related concepts, such as self-efficacy and emotional regulation, have been studied, there has been less research into accessible, practical approaches that teachers, support staff, carers and learners can use to overcome emotional barriers to learning mathematics. However, one exception is the Mathematical Resilience Toolkit by Johnston-Wilder et al. This paper reviews the research underpinning the Mathematical Resilience Toolkit, introduces the concept of psychological safety, and presents and evaluates the results of a small-scale study. The Toolkit was used with eight mature GCSE mathematics learners in a further education college. In this exploratory study, data were collected from interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. The key themes that emerged highlight the importance of addressing emotional aspects of learning mathematics in the classroom for those returning to mathematics from adverse prior experiences. All participants rated the Mathematical Resilience Toolkit as ‘extremely useful’ and would advise using it as a practical strategy for any adult with anxiety in mathematics learning. This approach warrants further research to establish its efficacy in different contexts.
This article explores the presentation of fake news, the most salient kind of disinformation, focusing neither on its text-based content nor its image-based form, but instead on its overall aesthetic composition—and how and why that composition contributes to the proliferation of disinformation. It begins with an analysis of “real news”—the genre that fake news attempts to copy—and its reliance on what Gaye Tuchman calls the “web of facticity” to communicate “good” information. It then turns to examine how fake news uses the logic of graphic design to exploit features of the web of facticity to create a “web of plausibility”—the web of facticity’s evil twin—to generate momentum for circulation through the analysis of several specific aesthetic features of the news genre. The conclusion offers some possible ways that this sort of perspective can better equip us to help stop the spread of disinformation.
The global market for neurotechnology products had been estimated by various market prediction bodies at around $3 billion in 2020 and has been predicted by some to grow to around $15 billion by 2024 and $19 billion by 2026. Neurotechnology includes medical and research applications, but also consumer devices. Right now, technologies are already on sale that claim to have ‘wellness’ or health benefits, through user recording, monitoring, and manipulating of brain activity. In consumer cases, a target brain state may be identified as being one promoting concentration, or calmness, for example. The general electrical activity of the brain can be recorded and intervened upon by the system in order to promote that target state. There are issues about how this can be done safely outside the lab setting, without supervision, and what long-term effects there may be (Coates McCall et al., Neuron 102(4):728–731, 2019). There are also concerns about how these systems could be open to hacking. Remote control of another’s neuromodulation device could permit unprecedented degrees of manipulation (Pycroft et al., World Neurosurgery 92:454–462, 2016). Established views on the role of data, personal, and public accountability will likely require updating in light of such developments.KeywordsConsumer marketsWellnessConsumer neurotechnologyBig techMarkets in data
Mithilfe der Neurobildgebung können vielfältige Informationen über Vorgänge im menschlichen Gehirn gesammelt werden. Dieser Sachstandsbericht informiert über die Grundlagen und Einsatzmöglichkeiten von bildgebenden Verfahren in den Neurowissenschaften, beleuchtet einschlägige rechtliche Normen und Regelungen und erörtert die ethischen Herausforderungen, die sich in Bezug auf den Einsatz von bildgebenden Verfahren im Rahmen der medizinischen Heilbehandlung und klinischen Forschung sowie im Kontext des Strafrechts stellen.
Dabei werden insbesondere die Risiko-Nutzen-Bilanz, die Autonomie von Patient:innen, der Schutz ihrer Privatsphäre sowie allgemeinere Überlegungen zur Gerechtigkeit in der klinischen Forschung in den Blick genommen.
Mithilfe der Neurobildgebung können vielfältige Informationen über Vorgänge im menschlichen Gehirn gesammelt werden. Dieser Sachstandsbericht informiert über die Grundlagen und Einsatzmöglichkeiten von bildgebenden Verfahren in den Neurowissenschaften, beleuchtet einschlägige rechtliche Normen und Regelungen und erörtert die ethischen Herausforderungen, die sich in Bezug auf den Einsatz von bildgebenden Verfahren im Rahmen der medizinischen Heilbehandlung und klinischen Forschung sowie im Kontext des Strafrechts stellen.
Dabei werden insbesondere die Risiko-Nutzen-Bilanz, die Autonomie von Patient:innen, der Schutz ihrer Privatsphäre sowie allgemeinere Überlegungen zur Gerechtigkeit in der klinischen Forschung in den Blick genommen.
Purpose
The principal purpose of this study is to analyze the consumer emotions on virtual merchandising in the context of social consumption ecosystem driven by value and lifestyle across the big middle consumer segment.
Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative information has been collected from 114 respondents selected through snowballing technique within the metropolitan area of Mexico City. A semi-structured research instrument was used to conduct the in-depth interviews online.
Findings
The results of the study indicate that technology-led virtual merchandising stimulates arousal and merriment among consumers, which converges the self-image congruence and appearance similarity. The subjects of the study have endorsed that visual stimulus leading to self-image and body image congruence develop consistent arousal and merriment, which lead to positive purchase intentions and buying decisions and inculcate the perception as seeing is experiencing.
Research limitations/implications
The samples drawn for this study may also limit the possibilities of generalization of the study results and map the consumer behavior in a predetermined pattern.
Practical implications
This study is founded on the theoretical maxims of theory of visual perceptions, cognitive theory of reasoning, theory of appearance and reality and Heider’s balance theory and contributes to these theories by explaining the relationship between the social self-concept and self-image congruence.
Social implications
Firms retailing online fashion apparel should also be engaged in developing user-generated contents through communications on social media encouraging experiential videos, slogans and reviews.
Originality/value
This paper significantly contributes to theoretical and practical implications on virtual shopping, emotions and beliefs and consumption culture.
It has been suggested that counselling psychology can both harness from and add to the field of neuroscience in a unique way, to continually improve understanding and interventions for our species’ mental health (Goss, 2015; Rizq, 2007). However, this view is often communicated by single or collectively interested authors and may not represent the wider network of counselling psychologists. The aim of this research is to explore United Kingdom (UK) based counselling psychologists’ experiences and views on incorporating neuroscience into their work. These views may help shed some light on the current landscape of integration within the profession, and whether any further action could be beneficial for practice, research and clients.
Visuell präsentierte Belege werden in der Wissenschaftskommunikation nicht nur zur Veranschaulichung von wissenschaftlichen Zusammenhängen genutzt, sondern sie stehen mitunter auch stellvertretend für die Evidenz demonstrierter Sachverhalte und suggerieren Objektivität. Verschiedene (visuelle) Evidenzpraktiken können unterschieden werden, welche allerdings auch instrumentalisiert wurden und werden, um politische Strategien oder Ideologien zu legitimieren. Der Beitrag zeigt anhand unterschiedlicher visueller Evidenzen und Evidenzpraktiken in Gesundheitsausstellungen, wie diese in verschiedenen historischen Kontexten zur Wissenschaftskommunikation und politischen Instrumentalisierung eingesetzt wurden. Unsere explorative, historische Analyse zeigt, dass visuelle Evidenzen und Evidenzpraktiken gezielt für politische Propaganda unterschiedlicher politischer Systeme in Gesundheitsausstellungen des Deutschen Hygienemuseums Dresden eingesetzt wurden. Diese politische Instrumentalisierung visueller Evidenzen zeigt sich auch ganz aktuell in der Verbreitung von Falschinformationen zum Thema Impfen und COVID-19.
Background:
Due to the inherent subjectivity of pain, it is difficult to make accurate judgments of pain in others. Research has found discrepancies between the ways in which perceived "objective" (e.g., medical evidence of injury) and "subjective" information (e.g., self-report) influence judgments of pain. This study aims to explore which potential cues (depictions of sensory input, brain activation, self-reported pain, and facial expressions) participants are most influenced by when evaluating pain in others.
Methods:
First, 60 participants (23 women, 36±10 years old) judged who was in more pain between two different pain indicators representing two different patients. These trials revealed which congruent indicator (i.e., two high pain indicators) would most influence participant decisions. Second, participants prescribed quantities of analgesia for one patient's pain based on two different pain indicators. These trials revealed which incongruent indicators (i.e., one high and one low indicator) would most influence participant decisions.
Results:
As predicted, facial expressions were perceived as subjective and were the least likely, among all pain indicators, to influence observer's judgements of pain. Participants relied upon indicators they perceived as objective. Self-report pain ratings had the greatest influence on participants judgements about how much analgesic cream to prescribe and were perceived as objective by half of participants.
Conclusions:
We found that in situations where incongruent information was presented about an individual's pain, participants relied on pain indicators that they perceived to be objective. The current study provides important insights about biases that people hold when making judgments of pain in others.
This edited volume explores new engagements with the life sciences in contemporary fiction, poetry, comics and performance. The gathered case studies investigate how recent creative work reframes the human within microscopic or macroscopic scales, from cellular biology to systems ecology, and engages with the ethical, philosophical, and political issues raised by the twenty-first century’s shifting views of life. The collection thus examines literature and performance as spaces that shape our contemporary biological imagination.
Comprised of thirteen chapters by an international group of academics, Life, Re-Scaled: The Biological Imagination in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Performance engages with four main areas of biological study: ‘Invisible scales: cells, microbes and mycelium’, ‘Neuro-medical imaging and diagnosis’, ‘Pandemic imaginaries’, and ‘Ecological scales’. The authors examine these concepts in emerging forms such as plant theatre, climate change art, ecofiction and pandemic fiction, including the work of Jeff Vandermeer, Jon McGregor, Jeff Lemire, and Extinction Rebellion’s Red Rebel Brigade performances.
This valuable resource moves beyond the biological paradigms that were central to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to outline the specificity of a contemporary imagination. Life, Re-Scaled is crucial reading for academics, scholars, and authors alike, as it proposes an unprecedented overview of the relationship between literature, performance and the life sciences in the twenty-first century.
This edited volume explores new engagements with the life sciences in contemporary fiction, poetry, comics and performance. The gathered case studies investigate how recent creative work reframes the human within microscopic or macroscopic scales, from cellular biology to systems ecology, and engages with the ethical, philosophical, and political issues raised by the twenty-first century’s shifting views of life. The collection thus examines literature and performance as spaces that shape our contemporary biological imagination.
Comprised of thirteen chapters by an international group of academics, Life, Re-Scaled: The Biological Imagination in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Performance engages with four main areas of biological study: ‘Invisible scales: cells, microbes and mycelium’, ‘Neuro-medical imaging and diagnosis’, ‘Pandemic imaginaries’, and ‘Ecological scales’. The authors examine these concepts in emerging forms such as plant theatre, climate change art, ecofiction and pandemic fiction, including the work of Jeff Vandermeer, Jon McGregor, Jeff Lemire, and Extinction Rebellion’s Red Rebel Brigade performances.
This valuable resource moves beyond the biological paradigms that were central to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to outline the specificity of a contemporary imagination. Life, Re-Scaled is crucial reading for academics, scholars, and authors alike, as it proposes an unprecedented overview of the relationship between literature, performance and the life sciences in the twenty-first century.
A recent paper in Nature Medicine found that psilocybin therapy in patients with depression decreased brain network modularity (measured with task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging), an effect supposedly not found with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor S-citalopram. This decrease in network modularity also correlated with depression. Here, we raise several issues with this paper, including inconsistencies in reports of the primary clinical outcome, statistical flaws including a one-tailed test, nonsignificant interaction, and regression to the mean, the ambiguity and overinterpretation of "resting state" data, and a missing reference for a conceptually similar study that exemplifies why a one-tailed test cannot be justified. Together, these issues make us question the uniqueness and impact of these findings, as well as the unwarranted media hype that they generated.
The modern information and digital society is radically changing the conditions of life and the ways of social interaction. Intelligent systems are replacing human potential. The replacement of human resources with intelligent systems is happening rapidly and at the same time imperceptibly. Cognitive abilities of students are natural evolutionary-embedded data. The scientific problem of the research consists in the complexity of the phenomenology of the study of unconscious cognitive processes. The purpose of this study is to analyze cognitive abilities and develop a barcode card as a method of a unified measurement system. The Tape line converter was used in the study, which converts qualitative immeasurable indicators into quantitative ones. The results of the study clearly demonstrate the quantitative characteristics of the range of cognitive abilities available to students. The research contribution consists in several directions: an individual characteristic of each function of cognitive abilities has been developed; in the near digital future, intelligent systems that are able to calculate the amount of functionality of cognitive abilities with the help of a CbS barcode card will hire specialists for work. The value of research work consists in a new way of revealing the inner evolutionary inherent in nature and improved by experience and skills of the range of qualities of cognitive abilities. The practical significance of the results of the work can be implemented as a pilot project in the search system for employees for a certain position.
Il suffit-il de voir pour croire ?
L’objectif de cette étude a été d'identifier les antécédents et caractéristiques relatives aux coiffeurs et employés des salons de coiffure qui les pousseraient à pratiquer les techniques de coiffures apprises des autres.
Les données ont été collectées à l'aide d'un guide d'entretiens individuels et d'un questionnaire d'enquête administré auprès d'un echantillon constitué de 209 travailleurs dans les salons de coiffure et de beauté de Bukavu.
Les données ont été traitées en recourant à l'analyse descriptive et la regression logistique.
Les resultats demontrent que la proportion des coiffeurs enquêtés pratiquant les coiffures apprises et celle de ceux qui n’appliquent pas sont quasi-égales (50.7% contre
41.3%). Et que l’expérience dans le métier influençait négativement cette propension à la
pratique des techniques apprises mais le fait d’être coiffeur de profession et homme l’influençait positivement. En enquête de terrain, il a été clair que OUI, seing is believing dans le monde de la coiffure, surtout quand on est coiffeur homme mais de manière fortement modifiée car le monde des coiffures est un monde fortement évolutif et les coiffeurs doivent tout le temps adapter les techniques apprises aux demandes du moment, ce qui les pousse à devenir presque totalement inventifs (et ne plus recourir aux techniques apprises) avec le temps.
This article presents a historical overview of the role played by neurology patients and clinicians in the development of understanding brain–behavior relationships and argues that, even with the advent of sophisticated functional brain imaging techniques, this clinical approach remains valuable. It is particularly important in the biological study of religion, where there is a danger that piecemeal and reductionist approaches will come to dominate. It is argued that religion is a socially located, multifaceted, and embodied phenomenon that occurs not in the brain but in the lives of human persons. Insights drawn from people living with conditions affecting the brain are thus vital for a full understanding of human identity, spirituality, and religion.
The growing controversy over fMRI scans is forcing us to confront whether brain equals mind
Because graphs provide a compact, rhetorically powerful way of representing research findings, recent theories of science have postulated their use as a distinguishing feature of science. Studies have shown that the use of graphs in journal articles correlates highly with the hardness of scientific fields, both across disciplines and across sub-fields of psychology. In contrast, the use of tables and inferential statistics in psychology is inversely related to subfield hardness, suggesting that the relationship between hardness and graph use is not attributable to differences in the use of quantitative data in subfields or their commitment to empiricism. Enhanced "graphicacy" among psychologists could contribute to the progress of psychological science by providing alternatives to significance testing and by facilitating communication across subfields.
The wide dissemination and expanding applications of functional MRI have not escaped the attention of the media or discussion in the wider public arena. From the bench to the bedside, this technology has introduced substantial ethical challenges. Are the boundaries of what it can and cannot achieve being communicated to the public? Are its limitations understood? And given the complexities that are inherent to neuroscience, are current avenues for communication adequate?
As one of the most compelling technologies for imaging the brain, functional MRI (fMRI) produces measurements and persuasive pictures of research subjects making cognitive judgments and even reasoning through difficult moral decisions. Even after centuries of studying the link between brain and behavior, this capability presents a number of novel significant questions. For example, what are the implications of biologizing human experience? How might neuroimaging disrupt the mysteries of human nature, spirituality, and personal identity? Rather than waiting for an ethical agenda to emerge from some unpredictable combination of the concerns of ethicists and researchers, the attention of journalists, or after controversy is sparked by research that cannot be retracted, we queried key figures in bioethics and the humanities, neuroscience, media, industry, and patient advocacy in focus groups and interviews. We identified specific ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) that highlight researcher obligations and the nonclinical impact of the technology at this new frontier.
Explanations of psychological phenomena seem to generate more public interest when they contain neuroscientific information. Even irrelevant neuroscience information in an explanation of a psychological phenomenon may interfere with people's abilities to critically consider the underlying logic of this explanation. We tested this hypothesis by giving naïve adults, students in a neuroscience course, and neuroscience experts brief descriptions of psychological phenomena followed by one of four types of explanation, according to a 2 (good explanation vs. bad explanation) x 2 (without neuroscience vs. with neuroscience) design. Crucially, the neuroscience information was irrelevant to the logic of the explanation, as confirmed by the expert subjects. Subjects in all three groups judged good explanations as more satisfying than bad ones. But subjects in the two nonexpert groups additionally judged that explanations with logically irrelevant neuroscience information were more satisfying than explanations without. The neuroscience information had a particularly striking effect on nonexperts' judgments of bad explanations, masking otherwise salient problems in these explanations.
Representations of the active brain have served to establish a particular domain of com- petence for brain mappers and to distinguish brain mapping's particular contributions to mind/brain research. At the heart of the claims about the emerging contributions of functional brain mapping is a paradox: functional imagers seem to reject representa- tions while also using them at multiple points in their work. This article therefore consid- ers a love-hate relationship between scientists and their object: the case of the iconoclas- tic imager. This paradoxical stance is the result of the formation of an interdisciplinary approach that brings together a number of scientific traditions and their particular stan- dards of what constitutes scientific evidence. By examining the various ways in which images are deployed and rejected, the origins of these conflicting tendencies can be traced to the technological, methodological, and institutional elements in the work of functional imagers. This approach provides insight into the current demarcation of imaging and reflects on features of visual knowledge. IS THIS THE OPENING PARAGRAPH? Representations of the active brain have served to establish a particular domain of competence for brain mappers, an emerging group at the boundaries of cognitive and neural science, and to distinguish brain mapping's particular contributions to mind/ brain research. At the heart of the claims about the emerging contributions of functional brain mapping is a paradox: functional imagers seem to reject rep- resentations while also using them at multiple points in their work. This arti- cle therefore considers a love-hate relationship between scientists and their object: the case of the iconoclastic imager. This paradoxical stance is the result of the formation of an interdisciplinary approach that brings together a
A growing interest in and concern about the adequacy and fairness of modern peer-review practices in publication and funding are apparent across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Although questions about reliability, accountability, reviewer bias, and competence have been raised, there has been very little direct research on these variables.
The present investigation was an attempt to study the peer-review process directly, in the natural setting of actual journal referee evaluations of submitted manuscripts. As test materials we selected 12 already published research articles by investigators from prestigious and highly productive American psychology departments, one article from each of 12 highly regarded and widely read American psychology journals with high rejection rates (80%) and nonblind refereeing practices.
With fictitious names and institutions substituted for the original ones (e.g., Tri-Valley Center for Human Potential), the altered manuscripts were formally resubmitted to the journals that had originally refereed and published them 18 to 32 months earlier. Of the sample of 38 editors and reviewers, only three (8%) detected the resubmissions. This result allowed nine of the 12 articles to continue through the review process to receive an actual evaluation: eight of the nine were rejected. Sixteen of the 18 referees (89%) recommended against publication and the editors concurred. The grounds for rejection were in many cases described as “serious methodological flaws.” A number of possible interpretations of these data are reviewed and evaluated.
Drug addiction manifests as a compulsive drive to take a drug despite serious adverse consequences. This aberrant behaviour has traditionally been viewed as bad "choices" that are made voluntarily by the addict. However, recent studies have shown that repeated drug use leads to long-lasting changes in the brain that undermine voluntary control. This, combined with new knowledge of how environmental, genetic and developmental factors contribute to addiction, should bring about changes in our approach to the prevention and treatment of addiction.
There is much interest currently in using functional neuroimaging techniques to understand better the nature of cognition. One particular practice that has become common is 'reverse inference', by which the engagement of a particular cognitive process is inferred from the activation of a particular brain region. Such inferences are not deductively valid, but can still provide some information. Using a Bayesian analysis of the BrainMap neuroimaging database, I characterize the amount of additional evidence in favor of the engagement of a cognitive process that can be offered by a reverse inference. Its usefulness is particularly limited by the selectivity of activation in the region of interest. I argue that cognitive neuroscientists should be circumspect in the use of reverse inference, particularly when selectivity of the region in question cannot be established or is known to be weak.
Searching for the person in the brain Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences
- D P Mccabe
- A D Rcarey
D.P. McCabe, A.D. Castel / Cognition 107 (2008) 343–352 351 rCarey, B. (2006). Searching for the person in the brain. New York Times. Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Drawing things together Representation in scientific practice
- B Latour
Latour, B. (1990). Drawing things together. In M. Lynch & S. Woolgar (Eds.), Representation in scientific practice (pp. 19–68). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Thinking it over: fMRI and psychological science
- Nicholson
Nicholson, C. (2006). Thinking it over: fMRI and psychological science. APS Observer, 19.
Searching for the person in the brain
- Carey
fMRI in the public eye
- Racine