Look Again: Effects of Brain Images and Mind–Brain Dualism on Lay Evaluations of Research

Abstract

Brain scans have frequently been credited with uniquely seductive and persuasive qualities, leading to claims that fMRI research receives a disproportionate share of public attention and funding. It has been suggested that functional brain images are fascinating because they contradict dualist beliefs regarding the relationship between the body and the mind. Although previous research has indicated that brain images can increase judgments of an articleʼs scientific reasoning, the hypotheses that brain scans make research appear more interesting, surprising, or worthy of funding have not been tested. Neither has the relation between the allure of brain imaging and dualism. In the following three studies, laypersons rated both fictional research descriptions and real science news articles accompanied by brain scans, bar charts, or photographs. Across 988 participants, we found little evidence of neuroimagingʼs seductive allure or of its relation to self-professed dualistic beliefs. These results, taken together with other recent null findings, suggest that brain images are less powerful than has been argued.

Adults are intuitive mind-body dualists.

“…On the other hand, these two societies can also be characterized by a strong prevalence of scientific rationale, which in combination may explain the variance in explicit beliefs in mind-body dualism earlier research reports (Forstmann et al, 2012;Hook & Farah, 2013;Proctor, 2008). People with different cultural or religious backgrounds-for example from societies in Asia or Africa-may very well differ in their explicit endorsement of dualistic or physicalistic statements (cf.…”

“…As a result, when explicitly asked about their conceptions about the relation of minds and bodies, most adults in Western societies deny that both are entirely independent entities (Procter, 2008) and have a slight tendency to agree with strictly physicalistic rather than dualistic statements (Hook & Farah, 2013). However, as research has shown that naive theories can easily coexist with acquired scientific knowledge (Shtulman & Valcarcel, 2012), an explicit endorsement of physicalistic beliefs cannot rule out that people remain intuitive mind-body dualists at heart.…”

Empirical neuroenchantment: from reading minds to thinking critically

“…A seminal study showed that displaying colorful renderings from brain scans, relative to simple bar graphs or plain text, led individuals to attribute more scientific merit to cognitive research (McCabe and Castel, 2008). Thereafter, however, some accounts questioned the import of these initial findings (Farah and Hook, 2013)—citing shortcomings in the original methodology and inability to replicate (Baker et al, 2013; Hook and Farah, 2013; Michael et al, 2013; Schweitzer et al, 2013). And yet, the quality of brain images may mediate their sway over critical reasoning: compared to tame graphical representations of the brain, images that were more three-dimensional and tangible increased the perceived quality of neuroscience information (Keehner et al, 2011).…”

Media Reporting of Neuroscience Depends on Timing, Topic and Newspaper Type

“…This is reminiscent of the promise-disappointment cycles identified in societal expectations of biotechnology [11] and indicates that the public image of neuroscience may not be realistic, but is often positively or negatively biased. The translation of neuro-imaging research to the public and daily life applications is not straightforward and sensitive to misconceptions ([12], [13], [14]; but see [15]). For example, common myths are that we only use 10% of our brain [16], or the idea that children are either “left-brained” or “right-brained” learners [2], [12].…”