After reading and evaluating a research article about fMRI, please answer these questions:

1. What is the central question being asked in the paper? Is there a specific argument or hypothesis that the paper is interested in proving or disproving?

2. What are the stimuli / what is the task used in the paper? How do the stimuli / task connect to the main question?

3. Who are the subjects? Is there anything specific about them that relates to the experimental question? (or are they just 18-30 year-old undergrads and grad students in psych?)

4. What evidence is presented to address the main question? Describe at least one main figure in the paper. (It is your job to identify a figure that is central to the conclusions of the paper.) What does the plot show? What do the data mean? (for example, does the data show a particular location of some mental process? A difference in the spatial pattern of brain activity for different brain states?)

5. What aspects of the methods and/or results give you confidence in the author's conclusions? What aspects of the methods and/or results (if any) give you pause / cause for concern? (for example, are there any issues with validity or reliability?)

6. If this study were to be conducted again, what do you think is the thing you would change first about the paper? Why? (Give your reasons for why the change you want to make is more important than other potential changes - e.g. why subjects and not stimuli changed? Could anything about the protocol be changed to increase external validity?) IF you think the paper is generally sound - what follow-up experiment would you do and why?