Centre for Neurocognitive Research & Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.
Neuroimage. 2014 Jan 1;84:1061-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.12.075. Epub 2013 Jan 11.
When inferring the presence of a specific cognitive process from observed brain activation a kind of reasoning is applied that is called reverse inference. Poldrack (2006) rightly criticized the careless use of reverse inference. As a consequence, reverse inference is assumed as intrinsically weak by many and its validity has been increasingly regarded as limited. Although it is undisputed that the careless use of reverse inference is a problematic practice, the current view of reverse inference is to the author's opinion overly pessimistic. The present manuscript provides a revised formulation of reverse inference that includes an additional conditional constraint that has been previously acknowledged, but so far not implemented: the task-setting. This revised formulation I.) reveals that reverse inference can have high predictive power (as demonstrated by an example estimation) and II.) allows an estimation of reverse inference on the basis of meta-analyses instead of large-scale databases. It is concluded that reverse inference cannot be disregarded as a fallacy per se. Rather, the predictive power of reverse inference can even be "decisive"-dependent on the cognitive process of interest, the specific brain region activated, and the task-setting used.
从观察到的大脑激活推断特定认知过程的存在时，会应用一种推理方法，称为逆向推理。波德雷克（2006）正确地批评了对逆向推理的粗心使用。因此，许多人认为逆向推理本质上很薄弱，其有效性也越来越被认为是有限的。尽管不可否认，粗心使用逆向推理是一种有问题的做法，但作者认为目前对逆向推理的看法过于悲观。本文提供了对逆向推理的修订表述，其中包括之前已经承认但迄今为止尚未实施的附加条件约束：任务设定。这种修订后的表述方式 I.）表明逆向推理可以具有很高的预测能力（通过示例估计证明），并且 II.）允许根据元分析而不是大规模数据库进行逆向推理的估计。结论是，不能将逆向推理一概视为谬误。相反，逆向推理的预测能力甚至可以是“决定性的”-取决于感兴趣的认知过程、激活的特定脑区以及使用的任务设定。
