Archive for January, 2009
The ‘Voodoo Correlations’ saga continues
Saddle up cowpokes, and prepare yourselves, for yet another episode of Voodoo Correlations. The latest salvo comes in the form of a reply authored by Lieberman, Berkman, and Wager. This is an invited paper that will appear in a future edition of Perspectives on Psychological Science alongside the original Vul, Harris, Winkielman, and Pashler paper. […]
The “Ten Commandments of SEM”
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a confirmatory method that allows researchers to test hypothesized relationships between variables and probe the ways that they influence each other. Rightly done it can be a very useful approach to have in your toolbox of methods. Still, true to most complicated techniques there are few ways to do it […]
The ‘Voodoo Correlations’ debate heats up
It hasn’t taken long for the academically-heated exchanges to begin with regard to the recent Vul, Harris, Winkielman, and Pashler paper. You can’t call out such a large group of authors, say their results are practically meaningless, and not have some of them speak up. One group of authors who were red-flagged as having non-independence […]
Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience
The progress of science is not a continuous, linear process. Instead it moves forward in fits and starts, occasionally under protest. For a young field cognitive neuroscience has made dramatic advances in a relative short amount of time, but there have been some mistakes that we keep making again and again. Sometimes we get so […]
Voodoo Correlations Index
This post serves as an index of the articles that reference the ‘Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience’ debate. The original paper has now been renamed ‘Puzzlingly high correlations in fMRI studies of emotion, personality, and social cognition’. There have been five posts so far, each listed below: [1] Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience: http://prefrontal.org/blog/2009/01/voodoo-correlations-in-social-neuroscience/ [2] […]