Practice question · Multiple choice
A study reports amygdala activation while participants view a political advert, and concludes voters felt fear. Why is that inference unsound?
Hints
- The forward claim is 'fear activates the amygdala'. Ask whether the reverse follows.
- What else activates the amygdala? Novelty, reward, anything worth attending to.
Show the answer
B. Because the amygdala responds to salience generally, not only fear
Why
Reverse inference: fear activates the amygdala does not license amygdala activity means fear, because the region answers to salience of many kinds. It is the commonest fallacy in popular neuroscience reporting, and the fix is to constrain the interpretation with behaviour rather than reading the state off the picture.
Practise Brain Imaging Techniques
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