2008 March ; 20(3): 470–477. doi:10.1162/jocn.2008.20040. | Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Frank C. Keil, Joshua Goodstein, Elizabeth Rawson, and Jeremy R. Gray
The study investigates the impact of adding irrelevant neuroscience information to psychological explanations on people's judgments of these explanations. Three experiments were conducted with different groups of participants: novices, students in a neuroscience course, and neuroscience experts. The results show that both novices and students rated explanations with irrelevant neuroscience information as more satisfying, particularly bad explanations. However, experts did not show this effect, indicating that they recognized the insufficiency of the neuroscience information. The study suggests that people may be influenced by the presence of neuroscience information, even when it is not relevant to the explanation, due to a general bias towards reductionist explanations or other cognitive heuristics. The findings have implications for how neuroscience findings are perceived and used in various contexts, such as legal and social issues.The study investigates the impact of adding irrelevant neuroscience information to psychological explanations on people's judgments of these explanations. Three experiments were conducted with different groups of participants: novices, students in a neuroscience course, and neuroscience experts. The results show that both novices and students rated explanations with irrelevant neuroscience information as more satisfying, particularly bad explanations. However, experts did not show this effect, indicating that they recognized the insufficiency of the neuroscience information. The study suggests that people may be influenced by the presence of neuroscience information, even when it is not relevant to the explanation, due to a general bias towards reductionist explanations or other cognitive heuristics. The findings have implications for how neuroscience findings are perceived and used in various contexts, such as legal and social issues.