Political Neuroscience

A piece by Brandon Keim in Wired points out some issues in the fMRI brain-politics study on reactions to presidential candidates discussed in a recent NYT op-ed. For example,

Let’s look closer, though, at the response to Edwards. When looking at still pictures of him, “subjects who had rated him low on the thermometer scale showed activity in the insula, an area associated with disgust and other negative feelings.” How many people started out with a low regard for Edwards? We aren’t told. Maybe it was everybody, in which case the findings might conceivably be extrapolated to the swing voter population of the United States. But maybe it was just five or ten voters, of whom one or two had such strong feelings of disgust that it skewed the average. What about the photographs? Was he sweating and caught in flashbulb glare that would make anyone’s picture look disgusting? How did the disgust felt towards Edwards compare to that felt towards other candidates? How well do scientists understand the insula’s role in disgust — better, I hope, than they understand the Romney-activated amygdala, which is indeed associated with anxiety, but also with reward and general feelings of arousal?

(And don’t forget “Baby-faced politicians lose” on this blog.)

1 thought on “Political Neuroscience

  1. This letter to the editor summarizes some of the serious scientific flaws with that study, especially with trying to map brain activation onto psychological states. It's a good complement to the linked article, as it makes some different points.

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