How to test cognitive theory with fMRI

TL;DR

This paper provides a guide on how to use fMRI data to test and constrain cognitive theories, emphasizing the need for theories to make testable predictions for neuroscience.

Contribution

It introduces methods for testing neurally-embellished cognitive theories with fMRI and discusses the challenges involved.

Findings

fMRI can inform cognitive theory when theories are extended to make neural predictions

Recent approaches improve testing of cognitive models with fMRI

Challenges include inferential complexities in interpreting fMRI data

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to provide a guide to using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to inform cognitive theory. This is, of course, a daunting task, as the premise itself - that fMRI data can inform cognitive theory - is still actively debated. Below, we touch on this debate as a means of framing our guide. In particular, we argue that cognitive theories can be constrained by neuroscientific data, including that offered by fMRI, but to do so requires embellishing the cognitive theory so that it can make predictions for neuroscience; much the same as how testing a cognitive theory using behavior requires embellishing that theory to make experimentally realizable behavioral predictions (i.e., the process of generating operational definitions). Moreover, recent years have seen the development of several new approaches that allow fMRI to better test neurally-embellished models. Along with a review of several ways of testing neurally-embellished cognitive theory using fMRI, we also consider the inferential challenges that can accompany these approaches. Readers of this chapter should gain an understanding of both of the potential power and the challenges associated with fMRI as a cognitive neuroscience methodology.