Self‐Fulfilling Prophecies: The Influence of Gender Stereotypes on Functional Neuroimaging Research on Emotion

Hypatia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 870-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Bluhm
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Interpretive Strategies ◽  
The Brain

Feminist scholars have shown that research on sex/gender differences in the brain is often used to support gender stereotypes. Scientists use a variety of methodological and interpretive strategies to make their results consistent with these stereotypes. In this paper, I analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research that examines differences between women and men in brain activity associated with emotion and show that these researchers go to great lengths to make their results consistent with the view that women are more emotional than men.

Efficient orthogonal functional magnetic resonance imaging designs in the presence of drift

2020 ◽  
pp. 096228022095387
Author(s):  
Rakhi Singh ◽  
John Stufken
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Imaging Techniques ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Orthogonal Designs ◽  
The Brain

To study brain activity, by measuring changes associated with the blood flow in the brain, functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques are employed. The design problem in event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging studies is to find the best sequence of stimuli to be shown to subjects for precise estimation of the brain activity. Previous analytical studies concerning optimal functional magnetic resonance imaging designs often assume a simplified model with independent errors over time. Optimal designs under this model are called g-lag orthogonal designs. Recently, it has been observed that g-lag orthogonal designs also perform well under simplified models with auto-regressive error structures. However, these models do not include drift. We investigate the performance of g-lag orthogonal designs for models that incorporate drift parameters. Identifying g-lag orthogonal designs that perform best in the presence of a drift is important because a drift is typically assumed for the analysis of event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging data.

scholarly journals Perceiving actions before they happen: psychological dimensions scaffold neural action prediction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A Thornton ◽  
Diana I Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Social World ◽  
Action Space ◽  
Action Prediction ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
The Brain

Abstract The social world buzzes with action. People constantly walk, talk, eat, work, play, snooze and so on. To interact with others successfully, we need to both understand their current actions and predict their future actions. Here we used functional neuroimaging to test the hypothesis that people do both at the same time: when the brain perceives an action, it simultaneously encodes likely future actions. Specifically, we hypothesized that the brain represents perceived actions using a map that encodes which actions will occur next: the six-dimensional Abstraction, Creation, Tradition, Food(-relevance), Animacy and Spiritualism Taxonomy (ACT-FAST) action space. Within this space, the closer two actions are, the more likely they are to precede or follow each other. To test this hypothesis, participants watched a video featuring naturalistic sequences of actions while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. We first use a decoding model to demonstrate that the brain uses ACT-FAST to represent current actions. We then successfully predicted as-yet unseen actions, up to three actions into the future, based on their proximity to the current action’s coordinates in ACT-FAST space. This finding suggests that the brain represents actions using a six-dimensional action space that gives people an automatic glimpse of future actions.

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