Neuroscience
Mind Hacks uncovers a pre-print (PDF) by Vul, Harris, Winkielman, and Pashler entitled "Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience". It's a "bombshell of a paper" that questions the implausibly high correlations observed in some fMRI studies in the field of Social Neuroscience. Vul et al. surveyed the authors of 54 papers to determine the analytic methods used. All but three of the authors responded to the survey, and 54% admitted to using faulty methods to obtain their results:
- Nominees For The 2009 3qd Prize In Science
3 Quarks Daily 2009 Science Prize: Vote HereFor details of the prize you can look at the announcement here, and to read the nominated posts you can go here for a complete list with links. Voting ends at midnight on June 8, 2009. Four posts from The Neurocritic...
- The Paper Formerly Known As "voodoo Correlations In Social Neuroscience"
Voodoo no more! The paper everyone loves (or loves to hate) has a new name.1 Through a number of channels [The Chronicle of Higher Education via @vaughanbell, Ed Vul's website, and Neuroskeptic], The Neurocritic has learned that the "Voodoo Correlations"...
- Voodoo Gurus
Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo [by OZinOH] Does anyone else miss having the Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans as much as I do? The 2003 meeting was great fun, but there seems to be no plan to return any time soon. The 2009 SFN meeting...
- Voodoo Counter-counterpoint
In today's Weekday Update, The Neurocritic is pleased to present an excerpt from Vul et al.'s rebuttal to Jabbi et al.'s rebuttal to the lively and controversial paper by Vul, Harris, Winkielman, and Pashler (PDF). The intro, main bullet...
- Voodoo Correlations In Social Neuroscience
The end of 2008 brought us the tabloid headline, Scan Scandal Hits Social Neuroscience. As initially reported by Mind Hacks, a new "bombshell of a paper" (Vul et al., 2009) questioned the implausibly high correlations observed in some fMRI studies...
Neuroscience
Scan Scandal Hits Social Neuroscience
Mind Hacks uncovers a pre-print (PDF) by Vul, Harris, Winkielman, and Pashler entitled "Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience". It's a "bombshell of a paper" that questions the implausibly high correlations observed in some fMRI studies in the field of Social Neuroscience. Vul et al. surveyed the authors of 54 papers to determine the analytic methods used. All but three of the authors responded to the survey, and 54% admitted to using faulty methods to obtain their results:
More than half acknowledged using a strategy that computes separate correlations for individual voxels, and reports means of just the subset of voxels exceeding chosen thresholds. We show how this non-independent analysis grossly inflates correlations, while yielding reassuring-looking scattergrams. This analysis technique was used to obtain the vast majority of the implausibly high correlations in our survey sample. In addition, we argue that other analysis problems likely created entirely spurious correlations in some cases.A few of The Neurocritic's targets were on the hit list, so stay tuned.... there's more to come in 2009.
- Nominees For The 2009 3qd Prize In Science
3 Quarks Daily 2009 Science Prize: Vote HereFor details of the prize you can look at the announcement here, and to read the nominated posts you can go here for a complete list with links. Voting ends at midnight on June 8, 2009. Four posts from The Neurocritic...
- The Paper Formerly Known As "voodoo Correlations In Social Neuroscience"
Voodoo no more! The paper everyone loves (or loves to hate) has a new name.1 Through a number of channels [The Chronicle of Higher Education via @vaughanbell, Ed Vul's website, and Neuroskeptic], The Neurocritic has learned that the "Voodoo Correlations"...
- Voodoo Gurus
Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo [by OZinOH] Does anyone else miss having the Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans as much as I do? The 2003 meeting was great fun, but there seems to be no plan to return any time soon. The 2009 SFN meeting...
- Voodoo Counter-counterpoint
In today's Weekday Update, The Neurocritic is pleased to present an excerpt from Vul et al.'s rebuttal to Jabbi et al.'s rebuttal to the lively and controversial paper by Vul, Harris, Winkielman, and Pashler (PDF). The intro, main bullet...
- Voodoo Correlations In Social Neuroscience
The end of 2008 brought us the tabloid headline, Scan Scandal Hits Social Neuroscience. As initially reported by Mind Hacks, a new "bombshell of a paper" (Vul et al., 2009) questioned the implausibly high correlations observed in some fMRI studies...