Four major problems with neuroscience

post by NancyLebovitz · 2012-08-22T05:25:18.833Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 4 comments

Contents

4 comments

A discussion of four errors which lead to false positives-- neglecting maturation (that brains change with time, even without intervention, learning effects (people who take a test more than once get better at it), regression to the mean (people who are unusually good or bad at something will probably have a more average score on subsequent attempts), and the placebo effect.

The link above is a summary of a lecture which isn't playing for me, so any further information about the lecture would be greatly appreciated.

4 comments

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comment by Douglas_Knight · 2012-08-22T13:38:27.611Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Here is the speaker's blog post version of the talk, from a couple of years ago.

comment by A1987dM (army1987) · 2012-08-24T01:19:21.535Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

You might want to edit the title to “Four major problems with neuroscience”: as it is worded now, I took it to be about unanswered questions.

Replies from: NancyLebovitz
comment by NancyLebovitz · 2012-08-24T07:28:48.909Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Good point. Done.

comment by Despard · 2012-08-24T20:37:02.597Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Very useful information and incredibly relevant for, among other things, rationality testing. I have some experience with these kinds of effects from my research on motor control, but it's good to keep them in the forefront of one's mind when designing studies.