Further evidence of a connection

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct54% picked this

   Many drugs prescribed to combat clinical depression act by causing increased

   Why this is right

   Correct - helps plausibility of author's way This actually strengthens the argument. The author is selling us on the idea that your frontal lobe activity determines your disposition. If you have higher left frontal lobe, you're happy. If you have lower left frontal lobe, you're sad. Learning that drugs that try to take you from sadder to happier work by taking your left frontal lobe activity from lower to higher reinforces the author's thinking. (The correct answer on Weaken EXCEPT doesn't have to strengthen, it can just be irrelevant)

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   54%
2. B

   Weakens - different way to explain8% picked this

   Excessive sleep, a typical consequence of clinical depression, is known to suppress

   This provides a classic Reverse Causality storyline for our correlation between frontal lobe activity and characteristic mood: the frontal lobe level doesn't lead to the happy/depressed; it actually goes the other way around. If you're depressed, you sleep too much, and that lowers your left lobe activity.

   8%
3. C

   Trap19% picked this

   Frontal lobe activity is not subject to variation the way general

   Weakens - hurts plausibility of author's way This badly undermines the author's conclusion. How can X be a result of Y if X doesn't vary as much as Y does Like if we said "your LSAT score is a result of how many hours you slept the previous night", we would make that causal claim seem way less plausible if we said "LSAT scores stay roughly the same, even when there's great variation in number of hours slept the previous night". Causality is supported by data with covariance. When the cause is present, the effect is present. When the cause is absent, the effect is absent. If general disposition changes 30 times throughout the day, whereas frontal lobe activity only changes like 5 times, then it doesn't quite seem like disposition is the result of frontal lobe activity. After all, it disposition changed way more times than frontal lobe did.

   19%
4. D

   Weakens - different way to explain12% picked this

   Earlier studies indicated that frontal lobe activity and emotive states are both caused by activity in

   This provides a classic Third Factor storyline for our correlation between frontal lobe activity and characteristic mood: the frontal lobe level doesn't lead to the happy/depressed; they are both symptoms of something else! When your limbic system fluctuates, it causes your frontal lobe activity and your emotive states (characteristic mood) to change. So frontal lobe activity and emotive states are correlated because they're both symptoms of what's happening in the limbic system. It's a thrilling end to any detective novel --- the limbic system did it!

   12%
5. E

   Weakens - different way to explain7% picked this

   Social interaction of the kind not engaged in by most clinically depressed people is known to

   This provides a classic Reverse Causality storyline for our correlation between frontal lobe activity and characteristic mood: the frontal lobe level doesn't lead to the happy/depressed; it actually goes the other way around. If you're depressed, you don't socialize as much, and since socializing raises everyone's left lobe activity, the depressed people have lower left lobe activity than the socializing happy people.

   7%