> But on the other hand, can the neuroscientific significant be determined by purely statistics?
Interesting point. Take neuropsychology, knowing that someone performs below the norms to a certain extent in a certain test can be very informative. In contrast, what does "larger/lower activations" imply, if there are any implications at all? To put it pluntly, there's the statistics, you observe some stuff and very frequently the rest is mere speculation, as there's no proper theory on the processes you wanted to target with your paradigm anyway. Which leads to "fillers" in the discussion, people talk of *compensatory mechanisms*, *modules* (sounds better than "this cluster in region ..., which has been reported in this paper on ..."), ..., but at closer look these terms tend to lack a proper interpretation. IMO this is one a major limitation in the field, lack of theories, and it tends to be whitewashed by using "sophisticated methods".
Best
Helmut
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