Self-study
Researchers gave each of eighteen subjects a playing card, then offered them money to lie to a computer about the identity of the card while undergoing a scan by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). ████ ████████ █████ ███ █████ ████████ █████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ██ █████████ ███ █████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that fMRI, which reveals brain activity, could someday be used as an effective lie detector. Why? Because in a study where participants told lies while undergoing an fMRI scan, the scanner picked up increased brain activity associated with stress.
Something that's important to notice here is that the study didn't use a control group of people who told the truth during an fMRI scan. That means that we don't actually know whether the stress reaction is connected to lying, or just arises because doing an fMRI study is stressful. In other words, we don't know if there's truly a correlation between lying and the kind of fMRI results that these participants displayed.
Objective: Weaken
The author takes the study's results to mean that fMRI can distinguish when someone is lying—this is crucial for the hypothesis that fMRI can help to detect lies. However, from the stimulus we can't be sure that a correlation between lying actually correlates with a particular fMRI result. A true connection between lying and fMRI results is essential to the conclusion, so we can weaken by undermining that link. For example, this could be by showing that participants in a control group had the same stress reaction.
5.
Which one of the following ██████ ██ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████
a
Existing methods of ███ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ██ █████████
The effectiveness of existing lie-detection methods isn't relevant, because the author is proposing a totally new method of lie detection. Because this isn't relevant, it can't weaken.
b
The majority of ██████ ██████ █████ ██ ██ ████████████ █████████ ██ ██████████
This doesn't help us weaken, because we don't know whether it affects the reliability of the study results. We don't know if unethical behavior is stressful, if people find real-life lying to be unethical, or any of the other details that we'd need.
c
The amount of ██████ ████ ███████████ █████ ██████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ██ █████
This doesn't affect the possibility that, in general, lying can be stressful enough to show up on an fMRI scan. We would need to know a lot more about how significant and frequent this variation is for this to weaken.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion.
d
Telling a carefully ███████ ███ ██████ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ █ ███ ██████████████
"Less" stress doesn't necessarily mean that a carefully-planned lie wouldn't show up on fMRI, so this doesn't weaken the idea that fMRI scans could detect lies by detecting stress.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion.
e
Stress reactions in ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ███ ███ █████ ████████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ███ ███ ██████
In other words, an fMRI result isn't a useful way to determine who's lying and who isn't; the stress result doesn't actually correlate with lying. This breaks the link between lying and fMRI results, which dramatically weakens the argument.
Plausibility
Plausibility
Presenting evidence that corroborates (in Strengthen) or conflicts (in Weaken) with the author's hypothesized explanation or the predictions that follow from that explanation.