[extropy-chat] brain scans for racial attitudes

[Damien Broderick]

Or not:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/17/1069027045722.html

< The scientist who led the research said she was stunned when she saw the
results. "I was shocked. I couldn't believe we got this correspondence with
the brain activity," said Jennifer Richeson, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth
College in New Hampshire.
...

The scientists found a strong link between a volunteer's test score [for
implicit bigotry] and activity in a region of their brain called the right
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Those with the highest levels of brain
activity also performed the worst in the difficult mental task. Others say
it is dangerous to interpret the results that way. "That's exactly the kind
of inference we're arguing it would be unfortunate to draw at this point,"
said Professor Bill Gehring, a psychologist at the University of Michigan.
"There just isn't enough known about what this task is actually showing."

The controversial study was published yesterday in the journal Nature
Neuroscience, which also discusses it in an editorial and in an accompanying
article trying to explain the context. >