Jan 14 2011
Predicting Performance from Brain Imaging
A new study, published in PLOS One, predicts performance on a complex video game by looking at MRI scans of subjects prior to attempting the task. University of Illinois Beckman Institute director Art Kramer and his colleagues used standard MRI scanning (T2 images) of the basal ganglia (the putamen, caudate, and nucleus acumbens) and then correlated the findings with later performance on a video game in which players have to attack a fortress with a spaceship. They found that certain patterns of white matter connections in the putamen and caudate (but not gray matter, and not the nucleus acumbens) predicted 55-68% of the variance among the players. They then confirmed their results with a new group of subjects.
This type of research raises many interesting questions and possibilities. First, if it pans out it can be a useful method for determining aptitude. If the results of this study can be replicated and turn out to be typical, it seems that this type of analysis may be superior to actual performance testing in predicting later performance on a complex task. The author of the study is quoted as saying:
“There are many, many studies, hundreds perhaps, in which psychometricians, people who do the quantitative analysis of learning, try to predict from SATs, GREs, MCATS or other tests how well you’re going to succeed at something, but never to this degree in a task that is so complex.”
I suppose this would highly depend on how close the predictive test is to the later task. But using standardized cognitive or academic tests is a reasonable comparison.
What is intriguing is thinking about where this research paradigm can go (with existing technology and probable future technology). Will this lead to hundreds of studies in which the robustness of specific aspects of brain anatomy are used to make accurate predictions about the potential of individuals to succeed in areas of performance? How will this knowledge be applied? What are the limits of this approach, and how modifiable are the outcomes by training and effort? Is anatomy destiny, or rather are these researchers just looking at the results of prior life experience? In other words, did subjects who were good at video games due to prior experience have more robust white matter connections in their basal ganglia, or were they born with that potential? (Actually – both are likely contributors, so the real question is, what is the relative contribution of each factor.)
While this type of research holds out the promise of specific applications, I would not jump to any conclusions too quickly. It’s possible that the results of such an analysis will reflect a complex combination of underlying factors that are hard to tease out. This research will help us in the quest to reverse-engineer the brain – at least in respect to figuring out how specific brain regions contribute to specific kinds of tasks and learning.
Before we take this information and use it for some practical purpose, we would really need to specifically validate such applications. For example, already there is talk of using these results to tailor specific training or education programs to individuals, by taking into account their neurological strengths and weaknesses. Such attempts at exploiting specific learning styles have not fared well in the past, however. Before we try this with MRI data, we would need studies that show that using different training approaches based upon different neurological profiles actually makes a difference in the final outcome. I would caution against prematurely extrapolating from this preliminary evidence to specific applications.
But despite my caution, I predict that this is likely to happen, or at least some pseudoscientific version of it. You can already buy products that promise to adjust your brain waves. It seems almost inevitable that companies will crop up that promote themselves by referring to this kind of research, and promise to use some brain reading device in order to give you what is essentially a cold reading of your personality and potential. It will be the new phrenology.
A worse possibility is that schools, companies, or other institutions will use some watered-down version of this research in order to screen applicants, give career advice, or tailor learning programs. Companies already use pseudoscientific handwriting analysis, and school systems have been bamboozled into using things like Brain Gym, so this seems highly likely. I will probably have to write blogs debunking such applications of this kind of thing in the future.
The abuse question aside – what is the real potential of this kind of analysis? It’s not clear, we will have to wait and see what the research shows. But let us take the hypothetical situation that this research does pan out, and we can peek into your brain and do an actual analysis of your neurological potential, and make fairly accurate predictions about your future performance. What are the ethics and implications of this?
On the positive side this information can be used to help people – to guide them in their choice of career and hobbies, to individualize training and education programs (at least in part), to help people take advantage of perhaps hidden strengths, and to shore up their weaknesses. It is probable that there are many people who struggle to succeed in certain areas and are not aware that they are laboring under a specific neurological deficiency. This technology would help them identify and then either deal with or work around such deficiencies.
But I can also easily imagine the dark side of such technology, and I suspect I am not alone. The press release on this research finishes with this note:
The findings should not be interpreted to mean that some people are destined to succeed or fail at a given task or learning challenge, however, Kramer said.
“We know that many of these components of brain structure and function are changeable,” he said.
Neurology is not destiny – got it. But what if the research shows it is 60% of destiny? Would it be fair to use such scans as part of an entry exam into a university or competitive job? Would the wide use of such technology make people feel helpless in the face of their hardwiring – why bother trying if you were not born to succeed?
As a scientist and skeptic I always want to know the truth, regardless of the consequences. But at the same time we have to be careful about the unintended consequences of how that truth is conveyed. It often comes down to what is emphasized. In general, it is better to emphasize what people can control rather than what is beyond their control. By definition, you can’t do anything about that which is beyond your control, so don’t worry about it. You can always make the best with the potential that you do have.
So while using brain scanning to tell potential (and who knows, maybe eventually personality, criminal potential, empathy, and a host of meaningful attributes) may be useful when applied appropriately, we have to be careful about creating a society in which so much emphasis is placed on something that individuals cannot control. It’s hard to talk about this without sounding like I am advocating political correctness or even social engineering, which I am not. Rather, it is simply more practical to keep focused on the malleable. It’s like the difference between talent and skill. We are born with talent, but we develop skill. It’s OK to recognize and even celebrate talent (which I think we do as a culture too much), but we should emphasize our celebration of hard work – because that is something everybody can do to improve themselves.
While I hope and expect that this research paradigm will go forward and produce interesting and useful results, we also need to keep our eyes open about the full consequences of how we use such knowledge. Another way to look at this is that social systems have to consider how they affect human motivation. Systems that look great on paper may fail if they are not compatible with human emotions and psychology.
9 Responses to “Predicting Performance from Brain Imaging”
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Very interesting post, but isn’t the idea that “We are born with talent, but we develop skill.” a kind of false dichotomy? e.g couldn’t a person, who was born a talented dancer but not a talented martial artist, also become a skilled martial artist easier (i.e. appear to be more talented than he/she was born) after developing dance skills later in life?
We are born with curiosity. We should be allowed to study whatever we are capable of being curious about to the degree that we are capable of satisfying that curiosity. Tried and failed is one thing – curious but not capable is quite another.
cwfong,
Just out of curiosity, it would be satisfying to know if I am capable of getting the same information out of your post without the phrase “capable of being”. Or have I tried but failed to understand your meaning?
Its unclear that there really is such a thing as innate talent. In a review I have read the authors think the evidence is dubious at best. Here is the conclusion to there article.
“The evidence we have surveyed in this target article does not support the talent account, according to which excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts. This conclusion has practical implications, because categorizing some children as innately talented is discriminatory. The evidence suggests that such categorization is unfair and wasteful, preventing you people from pursuing a goal because of the unjustified conviction of teachers or parents that certain children would not benefit form the superior opportunities given to those who are deemed to be talented.”
Howe et al (1999). “Innate Talents: Reality or Myth?” in The Nature-Nurture Debate: Essential Readings. S. J. Ceci & W. M. Williams (eds). Blackwell. Malden, MA.
Perhaps, then the MRI in the study you cite measures an acquired aptitude, rather than an innate talent.
There are some type-o’s in my above post. They are mine not the authors of the paper I cite.
What to do with results like this and how they will be used will depend greatly on the extent neural plasticity is consciously useful.
In other words, given the results of the tests, could I change the situation?
Currently there are a number of people who claim to have changed a habit (neural pathway) by conscious effort.
It would seem possible that some situations (which areas are activated) could be more easily altered than others.– I would note that a previous post on baby language is of interest as well.
On the other hand, if we are all robots programed to perform as we do, then whatever.
We could be programmed to change neural pathways by conscious effort. It could be exaptation of brain plasticity that evolved because plastic brains, and therefore the genes that produced them, survived better in changing environments. We take contraceptives too and that’s not exactly what our genes had in mind when they formed better and more sophisticated protective envelopes for them selves. In turn, our robots, which we intended to make life easier for ourselves, may eventually lord it over us.
On the other hand we may all be vapourised by a meteor before anything much else happens.
My comment begins with a name with which you may be familiar – Pete Rose. Pete Rose was and is not the only athlete who excelled at a sport because they wanted it and worked hard to practice it.
I agree with Steve’s points. If something like this becomes “standard” then how it is used could affect greatly how individuals conduct their lives and the decision they make.
If a person wants something very, very badly and works toward that goal I think they could “overcome” their make up (for lack of a better phrase). But if that same person is told they have only a 40% chance of succeeding at this, or that endeavor then maybe they won’t even attempt the task, or enter that field. The world could miss out on some amazing achievements. On the other hand maybe this person would enter a different field and make greater contributions to that field.
There are too many variables to ever have a good answer, but it’s interesting to think about and something that would need to be considered if this research ultimately becomes useful.
The main problem I have with applications of this research, and, it seems, so does Steven, is that in its current state it seems awfully similar to affirming the consequent:
X entails Y
Y therefore X
The above stated specific details about this specific brain region entail an increase in performance in some sort of task, therefore any increase in this sort of task is dependent upon the above stated specific details about this specific brain region. This is just bad logic: X certainly can entail Y, but there’s no reason to presume nothing else can and no reason to presume X is the determinant causal factor in Y. Certainly, that may not be what the authors of the study intended, but that will be what any attempt to use this research as part of an application procedure will presume: that X and X alone entails Y. However, as mentioned above, such thinking would be fallacious as there’s potentially numerous things (and numerous brain regions) that contribute to the entailment of Y to the same or greater degree than X.
Every time I hear about promising new research linking brain function and performance in a given task the scientist in me rejoices at the discovery and the ethicist in me cries at the prospect of how this preliminary understanding of brain function will be heinously misapplied to deny people the opportunity to succeed in life, albeit with the best of intent. Until we fully understand the implications that every part of the brain has upon every skill in life it would be irresponsible and unethical to attempt to apply our half-understood neuroscience to application procedures that could dramatically affect other people’s lives.
If anyone is considering doing so I would ask they heed one warning: If you deny someone the opportunity to succeed based upon this data and in turns out in the near future that many different brain regions contribute to this effect, for which you have not tested, then you will be responsible for damaging the lives of those whom you will have arbitrarily denied opportunity.
There is no unethical discovery, just unethical application of discovery.