Scientific American published an interview with Dr. Matthew Lieberman in response to the paper "Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience." From the interview:
Matthew Lieberman is associate professor of social neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles. In recent weeks, he’s also rebutted the claims of a recent paper, “Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience,” which explored the high correlations between measures of personality or emotionality in the individual—such as the experience of fear, or the willingness to trust another person—with the activity of certain brain areas as observed in an fMRI machine. Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Lieberman about why most fMRI correlations aren’t false, the “reward” of intense grief and why accepting unfair offers seems to activate brain areas involved with self-control.
LEHRER: Your field of research has come under fire in a recent paper titled "Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience." What's the authors' argument and have they identified a significant problem in this field?
LIEBERMAN: In their paper, Vul and colleagues suggest that brain-personality correlations in many social neuroscience studies depend on invalid methods and thus are “implausibly high,” “likely…spurious” and “should not be believed.” These claims are incorrect. These analyses use standard procedures for drawing inferences and protecting against false positives. The correlation estimates will tend to be somewhat higher than the true value, but there is no evidence to suggest that these correlations are meaningless or “voodoo” science.
LEHRER: Your field of research has come under fire in a recent paper titled "Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience." What's the authors' argument and have they identified a significant problem in this field?
LIEBERMAN: In their paper, Vul and colleagues suggest that brain-personality correlations in many social neuroscience studies depend on invalid methods and thus are “implausibly high,” “likely…spurious” and “should not be believed.” These claims are incorrect. These analyses use standard procedures for drawing inferences and protecting against false positives. The correlation estimates will tend to be somewhat higher than the true value, but there is no evidence to suggest that these correlations are meaningless or “voodoo” science.
Click to read the rest of "In Defense of the Value of Social Neuroscience." Lieberman linked to his rebuttal of “Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience" here in a comment at Brains on Purpose.
Image credit: Scientific American.
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