Severe tests in neuroimaging: what we can learn and how we can learn it

Abstract

Considerable methodological difficulties abound in neuroimaging and several philosophers of science have recently called into question the potential of neuroimaging studies to contribute to our knowledge of human cognition. These skeptical accounts suggest that functional hypotheses are underdetermined by neuroimaging data. I apply Mayo's error-statistical account to clarify the evidential import of neuroimaging data and the kinds of inferences it can reliably support. Thus, we can answer the question 'what can we reliably learn from neuroimaging?' and make sense of how this knowledge can contribute to novel construals of cognition.