On the (non) persuasive power of a brain image

Neuroscience explanations really do satisfy: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the seductive allure of neuroscience

Extraneous neuroscience information improves ratings of scientific explanations, and affects mock juror decisions in many studies, but others have yielded little to no effect. To establish the magnitude of this effect, we conducted a random-effects meta-analysis using 60 experiments from 28 publications. We found a mild but highly significant effect, with substantial heterogeneity. Planned subgroup analyses revealed that within-subjects studies, where people can compare the same material with and without neuroscience, and those using text, have stronger effects than between-subjects designs, and studies using brain image stimuli. We serendipitously found that effect sizes were stronger on outcomes of evaluating satisfaction or metacomprehension, compared with jury verdicts or assessments of convincingness. In conclusion, there is more than one type of neuroscience explanations effect. Irrelevant neuroscience does have a seductive allure, especially on self-appraised satisfaction and understanding, and when presented as text.

Neuroscience literacy in educators' training programs in Asia: A call to action

The center of learning is the brain and the disciplinary science that examines its structure and functioning, and the nervous system as a whole, is called neuroscience. The assimilation of essential neuroscience-related content by educational systems has gained global interest, given the relevance of learning to education. Recognizing the significance of frontline workers, several governmental agencies and educational institutions have launched initiatives to foster the inclusion of neuroscience literacy in educators' training programs. Their success, however, has depended on collaborative efforts among educators, researchers, and other educational stakeholders, and the process has involved considerable debate. Here, we aim to articulate a rationale to promote neuroscience literacy for educators. In doing so, we revisit prior arguments on the importance of training educators and build up on other reasons to advocate for this kind of endeavor considering cutting-edge research. Following this, we discuss critical elements to advance neuroscience literacy for educators and examine the most important challenges to execute successful initiatives. Finally, we appraise the significance for Asia, reviewing the scholarly literature on educators' prior experiences, and highlight the case of Singapore as an exemplar initiative that catalizes human capital, infrastructure, and strategies to advance neuroscience literacy. We conclude by arguing that governmental agencies and educational institutions should strengthen their efforts to accommodate their programmatic plans and agendas to embrace neuroscience literacy in educators' training programs. This global trend has arrived to stay.

The explanation-polarisation model: Pseudoscience spreads through explanatory satisfaction and group polarisation

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.

The Einstein effect provides global evidence for scientific source credibility effects and the influence of religiosity

People tend to evaluate information from reliable sources more favourably, but it is unclear exactly how perceivers' worldviews interact with this source credibility effect. In a large and diverse cross-cultural sample (N = 10,195 from 24 countries), we presented participants with obscure, meaningless statements attributed to either a spiritual guru or a scientist. We found a robust global source credibility effect for scientific authorities, which we dub 'the Einstein effect': across all 24 countries and all levels of religiosity, scientists held greater authority than spiritual gurus. In addition, individual religiosity predicted a weaker relative preference for the statement from the scientist compared with the spiritual guru, and was more strongly associated with credibility judgements for the guru than the scientist. Independent data on explicit trust ratings across 143 countries mirrored our experimental findings. These findings suggest that irrespective of one's religious worldview, across cultures science is a powerful and universal heuristic that signals the reliability of information.

The seductive allure of the brain: Dualism and lay perceptions of neuroscience

Laypeople prefer brain explanations of behavior (Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson, & Gray, 2008). We suggest that this preference arises from 'intuitive Dualism'. For the Dualist, mentalistic causation elicits a mind-body dissonance, as it suggests that the immaterial mind affects the body. Brain causation attributes behavior to the body, so it alleviates the dissonance, hence, preferred. We thus predict stronger brain preference for epistemic traits - those perceived as least material, even when no explanation is required. To test this prediction, participants diagnosed clinical conditions using matched brain- and behavioral tests. Experiments 1-2 showed that epistemic traits elicited stronger preference for brain tests. Experiment 3 confirmed that epistemic traits are perceived as immaterial. Experiment 4 showed that, the less material the trait seems, the stronger the surprise (possibly, dissonance) and brain preference. Results offer new insights into public perception of science, the role of intuitive Dualism, and the seductive allure of neuroscience.

Persuasive Features of Scientific Explanations: Explanatory Schemata of Physical and Psychosocial Phenomena

Explanations are central to understanding the causal relationships between entities within the environment. Instead of examining basic heuristics and schemata that inform the acceptance or rejection of scientific explanations, recent studies have predominantly examined complex explanatory models. In the present study, we examined which essential features of explanatory schemata can account for phenomena that are attributed to domain-specific knowledge. In two experiments, participants judged the validity of logical syllogisms and reported confidence in their response. In addition to validity of the explanations, we manipulated whether scientists or people explained an animate or inanimate phenomenon using mechanistic (e.g., force, cause) or intentional explanatory terms (e.g., believes, wants). Results indicate that intentional explanations were generally considered to be less valid than mechanistic explanations and that 'scientists' were relatively more reliable sources of information of inanimate phenomena whereas 'people' were relatively more reliable sources of information of animate phenomena. Moreover, after controlling for participants' performance, we found that they expressed greater overconfidence for valid intentional and invalid mechanistic explanations suggesting that the effect of belief-bias is greater in these conditions.

How developmental neuroscience can help address the problem of child poverty

Nearly 1 in 5 children in the United States lives in a household whose income is below the official federal poverty line, and more than 40% of children live in poor or near-poor households. Research on the effects of poverty on children's development has been a focus of study for many decades and is now increasing as we accumulate more evidence about the implications of poverty. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently added "Poverty and Child Health" to its Agenda for Children to recognize what has now been established as broad and enduring effects of poverty on child development. A recent addition to the field has been the application of neuroscience-based methods. Various techniques including neuroimaging, neuroendocrinology, cognitive psychophysiology, and epigenetics are beginning to document ways in which early experiences of living in poverty affect infant brain development. We discuss whether there are truly worthwhile reasons for adding neuroscience and related biological methods to study child poverty, and how might these perspectives help guide developmentally based and targeted interventions and policies for these children and their families.

Uncertainty Promotes Neuroreductionism: A Behavioral Online Study on Folk Psychological Causal Inference from Neuroimaging Data

INTRODUCTION

Increased efforts in neuroscience try to understand mental disorders as brain disorders. In the present study, we investigate how common a neuroreductionist inclination is among highly educated people. In particular, we shed light on implicit presuppositions of mental disorders little is known about in the public, exemplified here by the case of body integrity dysphoria (BID) that is considered a mental disorder for the first time in ICD-11.

METHODS

Identically graphed, simulated data of mind-brain correlations were shown in 3 contexts with presumably different presumptions about causality. 738 highly educated lay people rated plausibility of causality attribution from the brain to mind and from mind to the brain for correlations between brain structural properties and mental phenomena. We contrasted participants' plausibility ratings of causality in the contexts of commonly perceived brain lesion-induced behavior (aphasia), behavior-induced training effects (piano playing), and a newly described mental disorder (BID).

RESULTS

The findings reveal the expected context-dependent modulation of causality attributions in the contexts of aphasia and piano playing. Furthermore, we observed a significant tendency to more readily attribute causal inference from the brain to mind than vice versa with respect to BID.

CONCLUSION

In some contexts, exemplified here by aphasia and piano playing, unidirectional causality attributions may be justified. However, with respect to BID, we critically discuss presumably unjustified neuroreductionist inclinations under causal uncertainty. Finally, we emphasize the need for a presupposition-free approach in psychiatry.

Perceived truth of statements and simulated social media postings: an experimental investigation of source credibility, repeated exposure, and presentation format

To better understand the spread of fake news in the Internet age, it is important to uncover the variables that influence the perceived truth of information. Although previous research identified several reliable predictors of truth judgments—such as source credibility, repeated information exposure, and presentation format—little is known about their simultaneous effects. In a series of four experiments, we investigated how the abovementioned factors jointly affect the perceived truth of statements (Experiments 1 and 2) and simulated social media postings (Experiments 3 and 4). Experiment 1 explored the role of source credibility (high vs. low vs. no source information) and presentation format (with vs. without a picture). In Experiments 2 and 3, we additionally manipulated repeated exposure (yes vs. no). Finally, Experiment 4 examined the role of source credibility (high vs. low) and type of repetition (congruent vs. incongruent vs. no repetition) in further detail. In sum, we found no effect of presentation format on truth judgments, but strong, additive effects of source credibility and repetition. Truth judgments were higher for information presented by credible sources than non-credible sources and information without sources. Moreover, congruent (i.e., verbatim) repetition increased perceived truth whereas semantically incongruent repetition decreased perceived truth, irrespectively of the source. Our findings show that people do not rely on a single judgment cue when evaluating a statement’s truth but take source credibility and their meta-cognitive feelings into account.

Neurophilia is stronger for educators than students in Brazil

BACKGROUND

Educational products claiming to be "brain-based" are common. Due to neurophilia, including a brain in a product's marketing can enhance perceptions. However, schooling background may play a protective role.

OBJECTIVE

As previous neuromarketing research has been conducted predominantly in English speakers, we examined whether the effects of neurophilia extend to a Portuguese-speaking Brazilian population.

METHOD

Teachers and students (N = 262) viewed one of four advertisements for a hypothetical product translating to ''Right Brain'' or ''Right Start'' Training; half the advertisements contained an MRI brain image. Participants rated their perceptions of interest, efficacy, and scientific rationale.

RESULTS

The presence of a brain image or the word 'brain' did not influence responses. However, occupation had a significant effect: teachers' ratings were higher than students' ratings. Importantly, teachers were more susceptible to neurocontent, rating "Right Brain" training significantly higher than students.

CONCLUSION

These results thus highlight the need to improve teachers' neuroscience literacy.

Court Case Context and Fluency-Promoting Photos Inflate the Credibility of Forensic Science

Abstract. Faulty forensic science sometimes makes its way into the courtroom where jurors must evaluate its credibility. But at least two factors may inflate how credible jurors find claims about forensic science: the mere context of a court case and the cognitive fluency of the evidence. To investigate, we asked people to judge various claims about forensic science as true or false. In Experiment 1 ( N = 287), we manipulated court case context by either attributing the claims to an expert in court or not specifying their origin. In Experiment 2 ( N = 320), we manipulated courtroom setting orthogonal to source expertise. In both, we manipulated fluency via the presence of related but nonprobative photos. We found each factor increased people’s bias to judge forensic science claims true. Our findings suggest the justice system must improve the quality of forensic science upstream from the courtroom to ensure jurors’ credulity is warranted.

Impact of an Artificial Intelligence Research Frame on the Perceived Credibility of Educational Research Evidence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is attracting a great deal of attention and it is important to investigate the public perceptions of AI and their impact on the perceived credibility of research evidence. In the literature, there is evidence that people overweight research evidence when framed in neuroscience findings. In this paper, we present the findings of the first investigation of the impact of an AI frame on the perceived credibility of educational research evidence. In an experimental study, we allocated 605 participants including educators to one of three conditions in which the same educational research evidence was framed within one of: AI, neuroscience, or educational psychology. The results demonstrate that when educational research evidence is framed within AI research, it is considered as less credible in comparison to when it is framed instead within neuroscience or educational psychology. The effect is still evident when the subjects’ familiarity with the framing discipline is controlled for. Furthermore, our results indicate that the general public perceives AI to be: less helpful in assisting us to understand how children learn, lacking in adherence to scientific methods, and to be less prestigious compared to neuroscience and educational psychology. Considering the increased use of AI technologies in Educational settings, we argue that there should be significant attempts to recover the public image of AI being less scientifically robust and less prestigious than educational psychology and neuroscience. We conclude the article suggesting that AI in Education community should attempt to be more actively engaged with key stakeholders of AI and Education to help mitigate such effects.

Neuroscientific evidence in the courtroom: a review

The use of neuroscience in the courtroom can be traced back to the early twentieth century. However, the use of neuroscientific evidence in criminal proceedings has increased significantly over the last two decades. This rapid increase has raised questions, among the media as well as the legal and scientific communities, regarding the effects that such evidence could have on legal decision makers. In this article, we first outline the history of neuroscientific evidence in courtrooms and then we provide a review of recent research investigating the effects of neuroscientific evidence on decision-making broadly, and on legal decisions specifically. In the latter case, we review studies that measure the effect of neuroscientific evidence (both imaging and nonimaging) on verdicts, sentencing recommendations, and beliefs of mock jurors and judges presented with a criminal case. Overall, the reviewed studies suggest mitigating effects of neuroscientific evidence on some legal decisions (e.g., the death penalty). Furthermore, factors such as mental disorder diagnoses and perceived dangerousness might moderate the mitigating effect of such evidence. Importantly, neuroscientific evidence that includes images of the brain does not appear to have an especially persuasive effect (compared with other neuroscientific evidence that does not include an image). Future directions for research are discussed, with a specific call for studies that vary defendant characteristics, the nature of the crime, and a juror’s perception of the defendant, in order to better understand the roles of moderating factors and cognitive mediators of persuasion.

The social historical roots of the concept of emerging adulthood and its impact on early adults

Adults between the ages of 18 and 25 live in an era of economic and social uncertainty. Outsourcing, automation, and decreased governmental social spending have led to lowered living standards for youth; they frequently change jobs, are more likely to live with other people and have few benefits attached to their employment thereby prohibiting them from thinking about their long-term goals. The bio-psychological sciences have responded by offering a new life stage that they call emerging adulthood (EA). The new characterization disempowers youth and naturalizes their new uncertainties as a biological condition. This article argues that the stage offers little new insight about the experiences of youth and limits individual empowerment. In addition, such a conceptualization of youth is indicative of the narrow range of possibilities for adulthood in a post-industrial world that offers few pathways to get there.

Neuroimaging in criminal trials and the role of psychiatrists expert witnesses: A case study

Various neuroscientific techniques are increasingly being used in criminal courts causing a vivid debate on the way that this kind of techniques will and should be used as scientific evidence. The role of experts in this context is important, since it is them that analyse, present, interpret and communicate the results of these techniques to the judges and the jury. In an attempt to contribute to the discussion about the role of the experts in criminal cases where neuroimaging evidence was introduced, we examined twenty seven cases from the US and Europe. Focusing on the role of experts and their presentation of neuroscientific evidence, we aimed to examine the extent to which neuroimaging data can contribute to the construction of a solid and more objective, "scientifically - based" case. We found that neurobiological information introduced through experts' testimony is generally used in order to demonstrate some physical, organic base of a psychiatric condition, or/and in order to make visible some brain lesion, (structural or functional), susceptible to have affected the capacity to reason and to control one's impulses. While neuroimaging evidence is often presented by the defence as a scientific method able to offer a precise diagnosis of the pathology in question, our case analysis shows that the very same neurobiological evidence can be interpreted in different - sometimes diametrically opposed - ways by defence and State experts. Conflicting testimony about the same empirical evidence goes against the hypothesis of neuroscientific techniques constituting "objective and hard evidence", able to reach solid, scientific and objective conclusions. Frequent conflicts between neuroimaging experts require the courts to deal with the resulting uncertainty. As the law changes with technology, it is necessary for legal professionals to train and be prepared for the new issues they may encounter in light of new developments in neuroscience, so that they become more vigilant as to the interpretation of neuroscientific data.

Reconciling the opposing effects of neurobiological evidence on criminal sentencing judgments

Legal theorists have characterized physical evidence of brain dysfunction as a double-edged sword, wherein the very quality that reduces the defendant’s responsibility for his transgression could simultaneously increase motivations to punish him by virtue of his apparently increased dangerousness. However, empirical evidence of this pattern has been elusive, perhaps owing to a heavy reliance on singular measures that fail to distinguish between plural, often competing internal motivations for punishment. The present study employed a test of the theorized double-edge pattern using a novel approach designed to separate such motivations. We asked a large sample of participants (N = 330) to render criminal sentencing judgments under varying conditions of the defendant’s mental health status (Healthy, Neurobiological Disorder, Psychological Disorder) and the disorder’s treatability (Treatable, Untreatable). As predicted, neurobiological evidence simultaneously elicited shorter prison sentences (i.e., mitigating) and longer terms of involuntary hospitalization (i.e., aggravating) than equivalent psychological evidence. However, these effects were not well explained by motivations to restore treatable defendants to health or to protect society from dangerous persons but instead by deontological motivations pertaining to the defendant’s level of deservingness and possible obligation to provide medical care. This is the first study of its kind to quantitatively demonstrate the paradoxical effect of neuroscientific trial evidence and raises implications for how such evidence is presented and evaluated.

Do "Brain-Training" Programs Work?

In 2014, two groups of scientists published open letters on the efficacy of brain-training interventions, or "brain games," for improving cognition. The first letter, a consensus statement from an international group of more than 70 scientists, claimed that brain games do not provide a scientifically grounded way to improve cognitive functioning or to stave off cognitive decline. Several months later, an international group of 133 scientists and practitioners countered that the literature is replete with demonstrations of the benefits of brain training for a wide variety of cognitive and everyday activities. How could two teams of scientists examine the same literature and come to conflicting "consensus" views about the effectiveness of brain training?In part, the disagreement might result from different standards used when evaluating the evidence. To date, the field has lacked a comprehensive review of the brain-training literature, one that examines both the quantity and the quality of the evidence according to a well-defined set of best practices. This article provides such a review, focusing exclusively on the use of cognitive tasks or games as a means to enhance performance on other tasks. We specify and justify a set of best practices for such brain-training interventions and then use those standards to evaluate all of the published peer-reviewed intervention studies cited on the websites of leading brain-training companies listed on Cognitive Training Data (www.cognitivetrainingdata.org), the site hosting the open letter from brain-training proponents. These citations presumably represent the evidence that best supports the claims of effectiveness.Based on this examination, we find extensive evidence that brain-training interventions improve performance on the trained tasks, less evidence that such interventions improve performance on closely related tasks, and little evidence that training enhances performance on distantly related tasks or that training improves everyday cognitive performance. We also find that many of the published intervention studies had major shortcomings in design or analysis that preclude definitive conclusions about the efficacy of training, and that none of the cited studies conformed to all of the best practices we identify as essential to drawing clear conclusions about the benefits of brain training for everyday activities. We conclude with detailed recommendations for scientists, funding agencies, and policymakers that, if adopted, would lead to better evidence regarding the efficacy of brain-training interventions.

Free Will and the Brain Disease Model of Addiction: The Not So Seductive Allure of Neuroscience and Its Modest Impact on the Attribution of Free Will to People with an Addiction

Free will has been the object of debate in the context of addiction given that addiction could compromise an individual's ability to choose freely between alternative courses of action. Proponents of the brain-disease model of addiction have argued that a neuroscience perspective on addiction reduces the attribution of free will because it relocates the cause of the disorder to the brain rather than to the person, thereby diminishing the blame attributed to the person with an addiction. Others have worried that such displacement of free will attribution would make the person with a drug addiction less responsible. Using the paradigmatic literature on the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations, we tested whether neuroscience information diminishes attributions of free will in the context of addiction and whether respondent characteristics influence these attributions and modulate the effect of neuroscience information. We performed a large-scale, web-based experiment with 2,378 German participants to explore how attributions of free will in the context of addiction to either alcohol or cocaine are affected by: (1) a text with a neurobiological explanation of addiction, (2) a neuroimage showing effects of addiction on the brain, and (3) a combination of a text and a neuroimage, in comparison to a control group that received no information. Belief in free will was measured using the FAD-Plus scale and was, subsequent to factor analysis, separated into two factors: responsibility and volition. The investigated respondent characteristics included gender, age, education, self-reported knowledge of neuroscience, substance-use disorder (SUD), and having a friend with SUD. We found that attributions of volition (in the cocaine-subsample) were reduced in the text and neuroimage-treatment compared to the control group. However, respondent characteristics such as education and self-reported knowledge of neuroscience were associated with lower attributions of responsibility for both substances, and education was associated with lower attribution of volition for the alcohol sub-sample. Interaction analyses showed that knowledge of neuroscience was found to generally decrease attribution of responsibility. Further research on attribution of free will should consider the effects of context and respondent characteristics, which appeared surprisingly larger than those induced by experimental treatments.

The citation effect: In-text citations moderately increase belief in trivia claims

Authors use in-text citations to provide support for their claims and to acknowledge work done by others. How much do such citations increase the believability of an author's claims? It is possible that readers (especially novices) might ignore citations as they read. Alternatively, citations ostensibly serve as evidence for a claim, which justifies using them as a basis for a judgment of truth. In six experiments, subjects saw true and false trivia claims of varying difficulty presented with and without in-text citations (e.g., The cat is the only pet not mentioned in the bible) and rated the likelihood that each statement was true. A mini meta-analysis summarizing the results of all six experiments indicated that citations had a small but reliable effect on judgments of truth (d=0.13, 95% CI [0.06, 0.20]) suggesting that subjects were more likely to believe claims that were presented with citations than without. We discuss this citation effect and how it is similar and different to related research suggesting that nonprobative photos can increase judgments of truth.

Brain Knowledge and the Prevalence of Neuromyths among Prospective Teachers in Greece

Although very often teachers show a great interest in introducing findings from the field of neuroscience in their classrooms, there is growing concern about the lack of academic instruction on neuroscience on teachers' curricula because this has led to a proliferation of neuromyths. We surveyed 479 undergraduate (mean age = 19.60 years, SD = 2.29) and 94 postgraduate students (mean age = 28.52 years, SD = 7.16) enrolled in Departments of Education at the University of Thessaly and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. We used a 70-item questionnaire aiming to explore general knowledge on the brain, neuromyths, the participants' attitude toward neuroeducation as well as their reading habits. Prospective teachers were found to believe that neuroscience knowledge is useful for teachers (90.3% agreement), to be somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to the brain (47.33% of the assertions were answered correctly), but to be less well informed when it comes to neuroscientific issues related to special education (36.86% correct responses). Findings further indicate that general knowledge about the brain was found to be the best safeguard against believing in neuromyths. Based on our results we suggest that prospective teachers can benefit from academic instruction on neuroscience. We propose that such instruction takes place in undergraduate courses of Departments of Education and that emphasis is given in debunking neuromyths, enhancing critical reading skills, and dealing with topics relevant to special education.

Making sense of research on the neuroimage bias

Both academic and legal communities have cautioned that laypersons may be unduly persuaded by images of the brain and may fail to interpret them appropriately. While early studies confirmed this concern, a second wave of research was repeatedly unable to find evidence of such a bias. The newest wave of studies paints a more nuanced picture in which, under certain circumstances, a neuroimage bias reemerges. To help make sense of this discordant body of research, we highlight the contextual significance of understanding how laypersons' decision making is or is not impacted by neuroimages, provide an overview of findings from all sides of the neuroimage bias question, and discuss what these findings mean to public use and understanding of neuroimages.

Effects of Mental Health and Neuroscience Evidence on Juror Perceptions of a Criminal Defendant: the Moderating Role of Political Orientation

Several recent studies have examined the effects of mental health and neuroscientific evidence on attitudes toward criminal defendants, suggesting that these factors may influence juror decision-making in meaningful ways. Few studies to date have manipulated both of these variables while also considering theoretically important individual difference variables (e.g., political orientation). Using a criminal case simulation, this study manipulated the presence of evidence concerning mental disorders (psychopathy and schizophrenia) and increasing levels of neuroscientific detail regarding a defendant's brain injury, and examined verdicts and sentencing recommendations in over 400 persons attending jury duty. Main effects were detected for mental health testimony and political orientation, although interactions were noted as well. More negative reactions to defendants labeled as psychopaths were relatively consistent, whereas participants who identified as liberal generally were less punitive towards a defendant identified as schizophrenic than were more conservative jurors. Consistent with other recent research, juror perceptions of the defendant's level of psychopathic traits (independent of the effects of the experimental manipulations) predicted guilty verdicts and longer sentencing recommendations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Neuroscience-Inspired Design: From Academic Neuromarketing to Commercially Relevant Research

Companies and organizations the world over wish to understand, predict, and ultimately change the behavior of those whom they interact with, advise, or else provide services for: be it the accident-prone driver out on the roads, the shopper bombarded by a myriad of alternative products on the supermarket shelf, or the growing proportion of the population who are clinically obese. The hope is that by understanding more about the mind, using recent advances in neuroscience, more effective interventions can be designed. But just what insights can a neuroscience-inspired approach offer over-and-above more traditional, not to mention contemporary, behavioral methods? This article focuses on three key areas: neuroergonomics, neuromarketing, and neurogastronomy. The utility of the neuroscience-inspired approach is illustrated with a number of concrete real-world examples. Practical challenges with commercial neuromarketing research, including the cost, timing, ethics/legality and access to scanners (in certain countries), and the limited ecological validity of the situations in which people are typically tested are also discussed. This commentary highlights a number of the key challenges associated with translating academic neuroscience research into commercial neuromarketing applications.

Your Understanding Is My Understanding: Evidence for a Community of Knowledge

In four experiments, we tested the community-of-knowledge hypothesis, that people fail to distinguish their own knowledge from other people's knowledge. In all the experiments, despite the absence of any actual explanatory information, people rated their own understanding of novel natural phenomena as higher when they were told that scientists understood the phenomena than when they were told that scientists did not yet understand them. In Experiment 2, we found that this occurs only when people have ostensible access to the scientists' explanations; the effect does not occur when the explanations exist but are held in secret. In Experiment 3, we further ruled out two classes of alternative explanations (one appealing to task demands and the other proposing that judgments were mediated by inferences about a phenomenon's understandability). In Experiment 4, we ruled out the possibility that the effect could be attributed to a pragmatic inference.

Preferential Biases for Texts That Include Neuroscientific Jargon

The results of an experiment of preferential biases for texts that include neuroscientific jargon are presented. Such preferential bias has been reported even when the presented jargon is meaningless. In a variation of the well-known Weisberg et al. experiment, a group of undergraduate students ( N = 150; females 48%, males 52%, other 0%; M age = 22.4 year, SD = 2.6) chose between two possible explanations for a psychological phenomenon: a correct explanation or a circular restatement of facts. Unrelated neuroscientific terms were added to one of the explanations. Participants were asked to choose the correct explanation. There was a statistically significant preference for the explanation without neuroscientific terms. These findings differ from Weisberg et al.’s experiment and a number of others. The implications of this discrepancy are discussed.

Neuroscience in forensic psychiatry: From responsibility to dangerousness. Ethical and legal implications of using neuroscience for dangerousness assessments

Neuroscientific evidence is increasingly being used in criminal trials as part of psychiatric testimony. Up to now, "neurolaw" literature remained focused on the use of neuroscience for assessments of criminal responsibility. However, in the field of forensic psychiatry, responsibility assessments are progressively being weakened, whereas dangerousness and risk assessment gain increasing importance. In this paper, we argue that the introduction of neuroscientific data by forensic experts in criminal trials will be mostly be used in the future as a means to evaluate or as an indication of an offender's dangerousness, rather than their responsibility. Judges confronted with the pressure to ensure public security may tend to interpret neuroscientific knowledge and data as an objective and reliable way of evaluating one's risk of reoffending. First, we aim to show how the current socio-legal context has reshaped the task of the forensic psychiatrist, with dangerousness assessments prevailing. In the second part, we examine from a critical point of view the promise of neuroscience to serve a better criminal justice system by offering new tools for risk assessment. Then we aim to explain why neuroscientific evidence is likely to be used as evidence of dangerousness of the defendants. On a theoretical level, the current tendency in criminal policies to focus on prognostics of dangerousness seems to be "justified" by a utilitarian approach to punishment, supposedly revealed by new neuroscientific discoveries that challenge the notions of free will and responsibility. Although often promoted as progressive and humane, we believe that this approach could lead to an instrumentalization of neuroscience in the interest of public safety and give rise to interventions which could entail ethical caveats and run counter to the interests of the offenders. The last part of this paper deals with some of these issues-the danger of stigmatization for brain damaged offenders because of adopting a purely therapeutic approach to crime, and the impact on their sentencing, in particular.

Deconstructing the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations

Previous work showed that people find explanations more satisfying when they contain irrelevant neuroscience information. The current studies investigate why this effect happens. In Study 1 ( N=322), subjects judged psychology explanations that did or did not contain irrelevant neuroscience information. Longer explanations were judged more satisfying, as were explanations containing neuroscience information, but these two factors made independent contributions. In Study 2 ( N=255), subjects directly compared good and bad explanations. Subjects were generally successful at selecting the good explanation except when the bad explanation contained neuroscience and the good one did not. Study 3 ( N=159) tested whether neuroscience jargon was necessary for the effect, or whether it would obtain with any reference to the brain. Responses to these two conditions did not differ. These results confirm that neuroscience information exerts a seductive effect on people’s judgments, which may explain the appeal of neuroscience information within the public sphere.

Effects of Behavioral Genetic Evidence on Perceptions of Criminal Responsibility and Appropriate Punishment

Demonstrations of a link between genetic variants and criminal behavior have stimulated increasing use of genetic evidence to reduce perceptions of defendants' responsibility for criminal behavior and to mitigate punishment. However, because only limited data exist regarding the impact of such evidence on decision makers and the public at large, we recruited a representative sample of the U.S. adult population (n=960) for a web-based survey. Participants were presented with descriptions of three legal cases and were asked to: determine the length of incarceration for a convicted murderer; adjudicate an insanity defense; and decide whether a defendant should receive the death penalty. A fully crossed, between-participants, factorial design was used, varying the type of evidence (none, genetic, neuroimaging, both), heinousness of the crime, and past criminal record, with sentence or verdict as the primary outcome. Also assessed were participants' apprehension of the defendant, belief in free will, political ideology, and genetic knowledge. Across all three cases, genetic evidence had no significant effects on outcomes. Neuroimaging data showed an inconsistent effect in one of the two cases in which it was introduced. In contrast, heinousness of the offense and past criminal record were strongly related to participants' decisions. Moreover, participants' beliefs about the controllability of criminal behavior and political orientations were significantly associated with their choices. Our findings suggest that neither hopes that genetic evidence will modify judgments of culpability and punishment nor fears about the impact of genetic evidence on decision makers are likely to come to fruition.

Superfluous neuroscience information makes explanations of psychological phenomena more appealing

Does the presence of irrelevant neuroscience information make explanations of psychological phenomena more appealing? Do fMRI pictures further increase that allure? To help answer these questions, 385 college students in four experiments read brief descriptions of psychological phenomena, each one accompanied by an explanation of varying quality (good vs. circular) and followed by superfluous information of various types. Ancillary measures assessed participants' analytical thinking, beliefs on dualism and free will, and admiration for different sciences. In Experiment 1, superfluous neuroscience information increased the judged quality of the argument for both good and bad explanations, whereas accompanying fMRI pictures had no impact above and beyond the neuroscience text, suggesting a bias that is conceptual rather than pictorial. Superfluous neuroscience information was more alluring than social science information (Experiment 2) and more alluring than information from prestigious "hard sciences" (Experiments 3 and 4). Analytical thinking did not protect against the neuroscience bias, nor did a belief in dualism or free will. We conclude that the "allure of neuroscience" bias is conceptual, specific to neuroscience, and not easily accounted for by the prestige of the discipline. It may stem from the lay belief that the brain is the best explanans for mental phenomena.

The selective allure of neuroscientific explanations

Some claim that recent advances in neuroscience will revolutionize the way we think about human nature and legal culpability. Empirical support for this proposition is mixed. Two highly-cited empirical studies found that irrelevant neuroscientific explanations and neuroimages were highly persuasive to laypersons. However, attempts to replicate these effects have largely been unsuccessful. Two separate experiments tested the hypothesis that neuroscience is susceptible to motivated reasoning, which refers to the tendency to selectively credit or discredit information in a manner that reinforces preexisting beliefs. Participants read a newspaper article about a cutting-edge neuroscience study. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants deemed the hypothetical study sound and the neuroscience persuasive when the outcome of the study was congruent with their prior beliefs, but gave the identical study and neuroscience negative evaluations when it frustrated their beliefs. Neuroscience, it appears, is subject to the same sort of cognitive dynamics as other types of scientific evidence. These findings qualify claims that neuroscience will play a qualitatively different role in the way in which it shapes people’s beliefs and informs issues of social policy.

Recommendations for sex/gender neuroimaging research: key principles and implications for research design, analysis, and interpretation

Neuroimaging (NI) technologies are having increasing impact in the study of complex cognitive and social processes. In this emerging field of social cognitive neuroscience, a central goal should be to increase the understanding of the interaction between the neurobiology of the individual and the environment in which humans develop and function. The study of sex/gender is often a focus for NI research, and may be motivated by a desire to better understand general developmental principles, mental health problems that show female-male disparities, and gendered differences in society. In order to ensure the maximum possible contribution of NI research to these goals, we draw attention to four key principles-overlap, mosaicism, contingency and entanglement-that have emerged from sex/gender research and that should inform NI research design, analysis and interpretation. We discuss the implications of these principles in the form of constructive guidelines and suggestions for researchers, editors, reviewers and science communicators.

Brain images, babies, and bathwater: critiquing critiques of functional neuroimaging

Since the mid-1980s, psychologists and neuroscientists have used brain imaging to test hypotheses about human thought processes and their neural instantiation. In just three decades, functional neuroimaging has been transformed from a crude clinical tool to a widely used research method for understanding the human brain and mind. Such rapidly achieved success is bound to evoke skepticism. A degree of skepticism toward new methods and ideas is both inevitable and useful in any field. It is especially valuable in a science as young as cognitive neuroscience and its even younger siblings, social and affective neuroscience. Healthy skepticism encourages us to check our assumptions, recognize the limitations of our methods, and proceed thoughtfully. Skepticism itself, however, also must be examined. In this article, I review the most commonly voiced criticisms of functional neuroimaging. In the spirit of healthy skepticism, I will critically examine these criticisms themselves. Each contains at least a kernel of truth, although I will argue that in some cases the kernel has been over extended in ways that are inaccurate or misleading.

Empirical neuroenchantment: from reading minds to thinking critically

While most experts agree on the limitations of neuroimaging, the unversed public-and indeed many a scholar-often valorizes brain imaging without heeding its shortcomings. Here we test the boundaries of this phenomenon, which we term neuroenchantment. How much are individuals ready to believe when encountering improbable information through the guise of neuroscience? We introduced participants to a crudely-built mock brain scanner, explaining that the machine would measure neural activity, analyze the data, and then infer the content of complex thoughts. Using a classic magic trick, we crafted an illusion whereby the imaging technology seemed to decipher the internal thoughts of participants. We found that most students-even undergraduates with advanced standing in neuroscience and psychology, who have been taught the shortcomings of neuroimaging-deemed such unlikely technology highly plausible. Our findings highlight the influence neuro-hype wields over critical thinking.

People consider reliability and cost when verifying their autobiographical memories

Because memories are not always accurate, people rely on a variety of strategies to verify whether the events that they remember really did occur. Several studies have examined which strategies people tend to use, but none to date has asked why people opt for certain strategies over others. Here we examined the extent to which people's beliefs about the reliability and the cost of different strategies would determine their strategy selection. Subjects described a childhood memory and then suggested strategies they might use to verify the accuracy of that memory. Next, they rated the reliability and cost of each strategy, and the likelihood that they might use it. Reliability and cost each predicted strategy selection, but a combination of the two ratings provided even greater predictive value. Cost was significantly more influential than reliability, which suggests that a tendency to seek and to value "cheap" information more than reliable information could underlie many real-world memory errors.