The neuroethics of null results? (Connors)

Today, the Harvard Crimson reports on Samual Moulton' and Stephen Kosslyn's fMRI research on ESP, which tested brain responses to "telepathic, clairvoyant and precognitive" stimuli.  I've got to dig up the article, as I'm awfully confused about how one displays "precognitive" stimuli in a scanner -- and the vague article description simply ain't helping me: Finally, pictures presented through precognition, the ability to see into the future, were shown to subjects at a later time... Say what, now?  Anyone get that? (You can now find the original article in the comments section, which makes the methods much clearer!)

Apart from the obvious fun-factor of the ESP subject matter, the article caught my eye because of the nature of the (published) results:

According to Moulton, if ESP existed, the brain would respond differently to pictures designated as ESP stimuli and non-ESP stimuli. Theoretically, pictures perceived through ESP should produce a pattern in the brain similar to ones produced when an individual sees a previously encountered stimulus.

Instead, Moulton found that participants responded identically to both stimuli types, resulting in the lack of a statistically significant difference that is referred to as a “null result.”

...Moulton said null results have made previous ESP research difficult to interpret, but that he wanted to design an experiment that would give information independent of whether or not it produced null results.

“We didn’t find anything, but we didn’t find anything in an interesting way,” he said.

I sadly don't have institutional access and can't find out how and whether Moulton made the null result work for him in the experimental design (though I welcome clarification!), but I thought this might be a good prompt for discussion of the publication of null results in general.  Ought there be more (or less) place for null results in the published literature?  Do scientists have an obligation to make the implications of null results crystal clear in media reports of their work - particularly if, as in fMRI research, it's likely to be persuasive?

For you lucky ones with access, you can check out the Journal of Cog Neuroscience article here.

Updates: 1) Sam Moulton has offered a link to the original article, which you can find in the comments section for this post. 2) I initially mis-read the Crimson article, which presents Moulton's paper as evidence against PSI. My apologies!

Comments

[sam]

greetings,

you can find our article here: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~moulton/Moulton_Kosslyn_2008_Neuroimaging_Psi.pdf

best,
sam

[Caitlin Connors]

Thank you, Sam!