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Article
Fooled By the Brain: Re-examining the Influence of Neuroimages
Cognition
  • N. J. Schweitzer
  • Denise A. Baker, Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Evan F. Risko
Abstract

A series of highly-cited experiments published in 2008 demonstrated a biasing effect of neuroimages on lay perceptions of scientific research. More recent work, however, has questioned this bias, particularly within legal contexts in which neuroscientific evidence is proffered by one of the parties. The present research moves away from the legal framework and describes five experiments that re-examine this effect. Experiments 1 through 4 present conceptual and direct replications of some of the original 2008 experiments, and find no evidence of a neuroimage bias. A fifth experiment is reported that confirms that, when laypeople are allowed multiple points of reference (e.g., when directly comparing neuroimagery to other graphical depictions of neurological data), a neuroimage bias can be observed. Together these results suggest that, under the right conditions, a neuroimage might be able to bias judgments of scientific information, but the scope of this effect may be limited to certain contexts.

Department(s)
Psychological Science
Keywords and Phrases
  • Neuroimages,
  • Bias,
  • Judgment,
  • Persuasion
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Publication Date
12-1-2013
Publication Date
01 Dec 2013
Disciplines
Citation Information
N. J. Schweitzer, Denise A. Baker and Evan F. Risko. "Fooled By the Brain: Re-examining the Influence of Neuroimages" Cognition Vol. 129 Iss. 3 (2013) p. 501 - 511
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/denise-baker/6/