
Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion - maximgsaini
http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/03/27/brain-scans-link-concern-justice-reason-not-emotion
======
amirmc
_" 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.

~~~
judk
fMRI psych studies were debunked by the dead fish paper years ago. (In short:
investigators misreport the measurement apparatus's random noise as
significant results.) Why does the neuro community still publish fMRI psych
papers? Is it is a case homeopahy where the quacks are the ones doing the peer
rebiews and the entire specialty is a most cause?

~~~
amirmc
fMRI is a tool. Just like every other tool it can be wielded skilfully or
incompetently and in the case of fMRI you must do your stats properly (c.f.
the Multiple Comparisons problem [1]). There's nothing out there that
'debunks' fMRI as a tool.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_comparisons_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_comparisons_problem)

Edit: Indeed fMRI allows us to do things we had no hope of doing before, e.g.
communication with those who are otherwise in permanent vegetative states
[2,3] (that guy was my co-supervisor).

[2]
[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5792/1402.abstract](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5792/1402.abstract)

[3]
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8497148.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8497148.stm)

~~~
swederik
If Adrian Owen was your co-supervisor, you should know better than to say that
fMRI allows you to communicate with patients in a vegetative state. VS means,
by definition, that the patient is unresponsive. Communication via fMRI or
brain computer interface is still only possible with patients that are
conscious (e.g. locked in, or in a minimally conscious state).

~~~
amirmc
_" VS means, by definition, that the patient is unresponsive."_

And IIRC they _were_ VS until such studies demonstrated that actually not all
of them were (which was my point).

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spydum
For 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.

~~~
crusso
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](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.

~~~
zacinbusiness
My grandfather, who was chief detective for the PD in the town in which I grew
up, broke my childhood heart when he explained to me how unreliable polygraph
tests are. I had seen so many thriller films and detective films that relied
on polygraphs, and then one day he said something to the effect of "Those are
all B.S., we see guys every day that can fake their way through a lie detector
and smile while he's doing it. I don't trust them and I don't trust any man
who does."

~~~
judk
It's politically sensitive to admit, but the most-legitimate value of
polygraph is in scaring people into telling the truth (which cannve verified
in other ways). It has many other problems, though, like scaring innocent
people into flade confessions, or scaring people into divulging their
legitimately private info.

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maximgsaini
Link to original publication:
[http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/12/4161.abstract](http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/12/4161.abstract)

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pgl
Reasonable people driven by reason, study reveals.

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th0br0
Did anybody else think of fair people as pretty people and not just people as
the article states?

~~~
chestnut-tree
Yes, I thought the title _" Fair people are driven by reason, not emotion"_
refererred to pale-skinned or white people ("fair-minded" would have been a
little bit clearer). The actual headline on the linked article is _" Brain
scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion"_.

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jokoon
Well the justice system is exactly there to negate any emotional reaction from
the crowd. It's even completely isolated from the democratic process, and
that's how decisions are made to be the most fair as they can, even if a
justice decision is never a good one, always a necessary one.

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hosh
I don't find this study credible. The folks I've met who react strongly to
justice appears to me to be running through some intense emotions. Those
emotions tend to be highly concentrated to a point where it appears to be
reason, but they are still forms of emotions.

~~~
Fasebook
It's obviously created for political reasons. Science is dead because it used
to take us closer to truth, not obfuscate it.

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booruguru
Fairness is inherently rational so I don't understand why this is some kind of
revelation.

~~~
zacinbusiness
Is it? I wonder how one's sense of fairness is altered by their relative
emotional state? For instance, someone who has been emotionally compromised by
seeing scenes of brutality may well vote a harsher penalty on the perpetrator
of a similar act than someone who has not (I'm thinking childhood abuse, rape,
that sort of thing). Note that I am in no way saying that abuse or rape is
justifiable or anything, or that there shouldn't be harsh penalties, I'm just
saying that I wonder if someone who has experienced a brutal crime may have a
stronger "justice response" to similar crimes than someone who has not. My
reason for thinking this is to consider how rapes are handled in the U.S.
where many (male) lawmakers treat it as a relatively minor situation while at
the same time they have never, and likely will never, experience anything
similar.

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mkrecny
I thought it meant 'fair' people as in people with light hair, skin and eyes.

~~~
abdulhaq
yep me too, I was going to email it my wife to say here was the proof I was
more rational than her :-)

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nateabele
I love how unambiguous the political implications of this are, even though
they're never mentioned.

