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Why the Single-N Design Should Be the Default in Affective Neuroscience
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics, SUBIC - Stockholm University Brain Imaging Centre. Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Psychobiology and epidemiology. University of Florida, USA.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6710-1744
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Perception and psychophysics.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2081-7144
2024 (English)In: Affective Science, ISSN 2662-2041, Vol. 5, no 1, p. 62-66Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Many studies in affective neuroscience rely on statistical procedures designed to estimate population averages and base their main conclusions on group averages. However, the obvious unit of analysis in affective neuroscience is the individual, not the group, because emotions are individual phenomena that typically vary across individuals. Conclusions based on group averages may therefore be misleading or wrong, if interpreted as statements about emotions of an individual, or meaningless, if interpreted as statements about the group, which has no emotions. We therefore advocate the Single-N design as the default strategy in research on emotions, testing one or several individuals extensively with the primary purpose of obtaining results at the individual level. In neuroscience, the equivalent to the Single-N design is deep imaging, the emerging trend of extensive measurements of activity in single brains. Apart from the fact that individuals react differently to emotional stimuli, they also vary in shape and size of their brains. Group-based analysis of brain imaging data therefore refers to an “average brain” that was activated in a way that may not be representative of the physiology of any of the tested individual brains, nor of how these brains responded to the experimental stimuli. Deep imaging avoids such group-averaging artifacts by simply focusing on the individual brain. This methodological shift toward individual analysis has already opened new research areas in fields like vision science. Inspired by this, we call for a corresponding shift in affective neuroscience, away from group averages, and toward experimental designs targeting the individual.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature, 2024. Vol. 5, no 1, p. 62-66
Keywords [en]
psychophysics approach, brain imaging, methods, emotion
National Category
Neurosciences Psychology
Research subject
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-215760DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00182-5ISI: 001044341900001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85159342538OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-215760DiVA, id: diva2:1746207
Note

Open access funding provided by Stockholm University. NCE was funded through NIH/NIA grants R01AG072658, R01AG057764, and R01AG059809 as well as FLDOH grants 22A12 and 21A09.

Available from: 2023-03-27 Created: 2023-03-27 Last updated: 2024-04-25Bibliographically approved

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Fischer, HåkanNilsson, Mats E.

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