Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Proper Multiple Comparisons Correction
Craig M. Bennett(1), Abigail A. Baird(2), Michael B. Miller(1) and George L. Wolford(3)
1)Department of Psychology, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
2)Department of Psychology, Blodgett Hall, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
3)Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Moore Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755
Early Access: Oct 20, 2010
Abstract
With the extreme dimensionality of functional neuroimaging data comes extreme risk for false positives. Across the 130,000 voxels in a typical fMRI volume the probability of at least one false positive is almost certain. Proper correction for multiple comparisons should be completed during the analysis of these datasets, but is often ignored by investigators. To highlight the danger of this practice we completed an fMRI scanning session with a post-mortem Atlantic Salmon as the subject. The salmon was shown the same social perspective-taking task that was later administered to a group of human subjects. Statistics that were uncorrected for multiple comparisons showed active voxel clusters in the salmon’s brain cavity and spinal column. Statistics controlling for the family-wise error rate (FWER) and false discovery rate (FDR) both indicated that no active voxels were present, even at relaxed statistical thresholds. We argue that relying on standard statistical thresholds (p < 0.001) and low minimum cluster sizes (k > 8) is an ineffective control for multiple comparisons. We further argue that the vast majority of fMRI studies should be utilizing proper multiple comparisons correction as standard practice when thresholding their data.
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Comments
2 comments postedIt's great to see information like this being shared. It's important that more researchers know how to handle multiple hypothesis testing.
We're proud to post our first research article, "Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Proper Multiple Comparisons Correction", by Bennett, Baird, Miller, and Wolford. At first glance, you may wonder why these creative researchers decided to perform fMRI on a dead salmon. Upon further examination, you will hopefully see that their experiment is meant to illustrate the pitfalls of not appropriately handling multiple hypothesis testing.