Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
news.uchicago.edu
Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
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Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#2Link to original publication:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/12/4161.abstract
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#3"During the behavior-evaluation exercise, people with high justice sensitivity showed more activity than average participants in parts of the brain associated with higher-order cognition. Brain areas commonly linked with emotional processing were not affected.
The conclusion was clear, Decety said: “Individuals who are sensitive to justice and fairness do not seem to be emotionally driven. Rather, they are cognitively driven.”"
While this is a very interesting study, that conclusion does not follow from the previous paragraph. I'd even bet that specific claim is not made in the original paper but was convenient to state in a non-peer-reviewed news story.
fMRI studies are extremely easy to perform and, frankly, if you put someone in a brain scanner bits of the brain will light up. I know this because my PhD was on the topic of human emotion and decision-making and I used fMRI (as well as PET). I'm going to skim the paper now and see if my earlier statement holds up.
EDIT: As I suspected, their claim is not made (even slightly) in the peer-reviewed work. I still find the study interesting but I see flaws in the study design as there isn't an attempt at a baseline condition which (imho) is important for any claims about emotional processing.
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#4"During the behavior-evaluation exercise, people with high justice sensitivity showed more activity than average participants in parts of the brain associated with higher-order cognition. Brain areas commonly linked with emotional processing were not affected. The conclusion was clear, Decety said: “Individuals who are sensitive to justice and fairness do not seem to be emotionally driven. Rather, they are cognitivel…
Can you explain why it does not follow instead of just putting not in italics for all the non-psychology PhD's in the crowd?
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#5For some reason fMRI terrifies me in the sense that it will be misused to predict human behavior. The idea that we can effectively read your brain leads to the assumption that we can understand the behaviors, and I think that is false.
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#6"During the behavior-evaluation exercise, people with high justice sensitivity showed more activity than average participants in parts of the brain associated with higher-order cognition. Brain areas commonly linked with emotional processing were not affected. The conclusion was clear, Decety said: “Individuals who are sensitive to justice and fairness do not seem to be emotionally driven. Rather, they are cognitivel…
Can you explain why it does not follow instead of just putting not in italics for all the non-psychology PhD's in the crowd?
I'll try breaking it down, along with the questions that came to mind as I read it.
... people with high justice sensitivity showed more activity than average participants in parts of the brain associated with higher-order cognition.
What is the activity being measured relative to? One of the issues with any brain imaging study is the baseline condition you make comparisons with. To state that you saw more activity is only meaningful if you believe the baseline was appropriate.
Brain areas commonly linked with emotional processing were not affected.
Again, this must be relative to the baseline chosen, which the story doesn't mention but relies on. For example, in this study they do a comparison of Good vs Bad and then do the reverse comparison of Bad vs Good. If the emotional parts of the brain are equally active for both those conditions, then they'll simply disappear in the contrast. You may or may not care about this depending on your research question, but it does affect the claims you can later make. To be clear, I'm fine with the paragraph so far.
Individuals who are sensitive to justice and fairness do not seem to be emotionally driven. Rather, they are cognitively driven.
This is where I take umbrage. Nothing in the previous para claimed (or demonstrated) that there was a fundamental distinction between cognition and emotion per se. Yet this quote tries to boil it down and makes claims about the emotional aspects that the study cannot support. That the emotional regions of the brain showed no difference may simply be an artefact of the study design. Having read the paper, they didn't have a proper baseline comparison so I treat any claims related to emotional processing with suspicion.
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#7For some reason fMRI terrifies me in the sense that it will be misused to predict human behavior. The idea that we can effectively read your brain leads to the assumption that we can understand the behaviors, and I think that is false.
I understand your fears. Look at how lie detector (polygraph) tests are still used and how the public generally assumes that they're a reliable indication of veracity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph#Validity
As with many technologies, though, you can't be a Luddite and slow progress because the general population might misunderstand it.
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#8Fairness is inherently rational so I don't understand why this is some kind of revelation.
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#9Reasonable people driven by reason, study reveals.
Re: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion
#10I love how unambiguous the political implications of this are, even though they're never mentioned.