target mechanism

Do we measure what we think we are measuring?

Tests used in the empirical sciences are often (implicitly) assumed to be representative of a target mechanism in the sense that similar tests should lead to similar results. In this talk, using resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) as an example, I will argue that this assumption does not necessarily hold true. Typically EEG studies are conducted selecting one analysis method thought to be representative of the research question asked. Using multiple methods, we extracted a variety of features from a single resting-state EEG dataset and conducted correlational and case-control analyses. We found that many EEG features revealed a significant effect in the case-control analyses. Similarly, EEG features correlated significantly with cognitive tasks. However, when we compared these features pairwise, we did not find strong correlations. A number of explanations to these results will be discussed.