Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37996498›Full record

ArticleNature human behaviour2024

The response time paradox in functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses.

Jeanette A Mumford, Patrick G Bissett, Henry M Jones, Sunjae Shim, Jaime Ali H Rios, Russell A Poldrack

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature human behaviour, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
34citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Trial
  3. Article
  4. Hierarchical Reconfiguration of Neurocognitive Task Set Representations Mediates Cognitive Flexibility.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Incentive valence differentially engages open- and closed-loop basal ganglia circuits during movement initiation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. Joint models reveal human subcortical underpinnings of choice and learning behavior.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Review
  15. Article
  16. Brain responses vary in duration-modeling strategies and challenges.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025
    Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Jeanette A MumfordDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. jeanette.mumford@gmail.com.ORCID 0000-0002-0926-3531
Patrick G BissettDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-0854-9404
Henry M JonesDepartment of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-7719-3646
Sunjae ShimDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-2773-0807
Jaime Ali H RiosDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-7007-0755
Russell A PoldrackDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-6755-0259

Funding

Applying novel technologies and methods to inform the ontology of self-regulationUH2DA041713 · NIDA · DARTMOUTH COLLEGE · PI MARSCH, LISA A., POLDRACK, RUSSELL A · 2015 to 2017
$2.8M
NIDA NIH HHS UH2 DA041713U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) UH2DA041713
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Response times (RTs) are often the main signal of interest in cognitive psychology but are often ignored in functional MRI (fMRI) analyses. In fMRI analysis the intensity of the signal serves as a proxy for the intensity of local neuronal activity, but changes in either the intensity or the duration of neuronal activity can yield identical fMRI signals. Therefore, if RTs are ignored and pair with neuronal durations, fMRI results claiming intensity differences may be confounded by RTs. We show how ignoring RTs goes beyond this confound, where longer RTs are paired with larger activation estimates, to lesser-known issues where RTs become confounds in group-level analyses and, surprisingly, how the RT confound can induce other artificial group-level associations with variables that are not related to the condition contrast or RTs. We propose a new time-series model to address these issues and encourage increasing focus on what the widespread RT-based signal represents.

Indexed as

Magnetic Resonance ImagingHumansReaction TimeTime Factors

Identifiers

PMID37996498
PMCPMC13689935

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.