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The relevance of behavioural measures for functional-imaging studies of cognition

Abstract

The psychological structure of cognition is often inferred from conjoint measures of behaviour (such as reaction time) and brain activation (such as cerebral blood flow). In many experiments these measures produce divergent results. One example is where a significant pattern of brain activation occurs without a corresponding change in overt behaviour. In such circumstances, can cognitive theory be informed from brain-activation data alone? Or, given the more established link between behaviour and cognition, is behavioural corroboration necessary?

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Figure 1: An example of statistically significant imaging data accompanied by non-significant behavioural data.
Figure 2: Linking cognition to the brain: the effect of different structure/function mapping relations.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to K. Friston, T. Shallice, M. Coltheart, W. Milberg and H. Ellis for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Part of it was written while the first author was at the Oxford University Department of Experimental Psychology, UK, during which time both authors were supported by the Medical Research Council (UK). D. W. is currently supported by W. Milberg and G. McGlinchey.

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Wilkinson, D., Halligan, P. The relevance of behavioural measures for functional-imaging studies of cognition. Nat Rev Neurosci 5, 67–73 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1302

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