A fascinating study has found that sniffing female tears significantly reduced male aggression and decreased activity in aggression-related brain networks. It’s suggested that the effect, which is caused by chemical signals in tears and is also seen in rodents, serves a protective function.
If male tears were the only control, then they run the risk of not finding any result. If you have 3 groups, you need a substantially larger sample size because you are running a less powerful statistical test.
Easier to start with the test that’s most likely to work, and narrow it down from there if you succeed
Having men sniff three different samples would still allow for saline as a control and wouldn’t really make the data set that much more complicated.
Is that an assumption or do you have experience with research like this?
Just college lab courses, but come on, it’s pretty basic. The experiment merely tests a single variable by changing it while keeping everything else the same. There could have been dozens of different samples that men sniffed and it wouldn’t really make the data complicated.
It would increase the length of the test, though, so dozens of samples would have been cumbersome. But just two? Literally just “see how the test group responds to sample 1, sample 2, and the control sample”? That’s not complicated science. You probably did that in highschool lol
Testing multiple hypotheses this way still requires additional sample size because there is an increased error likelihood. From a statistical point of view, the most efficient test may be to stick to one variable like this.
I’m guessing they had to stay within their funding/budget and didn’t want to reduce the sample size to increase the number of variables tested. MRIs are expensive
they should just be getting time on the machine although maybe also tech time. either way doing multiple with a single individual is easier than more individuals.
But that makes it more complex because you have to start worrying about the order they’re done in because it might be different emotions playing your first or third game plus the effect might linger, take time to show, etc.
Far better to answer one simple question and prove there is an effect then follow up tests can look at finding the bounds to that and starting to narrow in on identifying mechanics.
its been done with other things. its an mri so regardless of order the simuli should light up the brain regions. either it does it or it does not.
I could believe that. Hopefully they can get more funding for further testing.
I have experience and yes, it would not make it much more complicated. two types of controls are actually common although using male tears would not be a control. but like 5 research targets and 2 controls would not be beyond belief.