Q23 - Further evidence of a connection

[noah]

The conclusion of the argument is that one's mood is caused by frontal lobe activity. Why? Because those who are sad showed less left frontal activity and those who were happy showed more. We're looking for the one answer that does not weaken this argument. Looking at the core of this argument, I see a gap related to causation - perhaps the mood causes the activity and not vice versa. But, since 4 answers are going to weaken the argument, it would be hard to predict all the ways this will happen.

On first glance, (A) looks like a weakener - it's a version of what I predicted: the mood (by way of the drug) causes the brain activity. However, it says that depression increases left lobe activity, and the argument says that sad folks have less left lobe activity. One thing that is confusing is that it seems to contradict the premise the sad folks have less left lobe activity, but in fact there is no contradiction. Depressed folks could generally show X though a drug that can be used to treat depression might have a different effect. Furthermore, it's rare that an LSAT weakener simply disputes a premise - we're looking to weaken the connection between the premises and conclusion.

(B) weakens gives another reason for the decreased left lobe activity.
(C) gives a reason we should be wary of a connection between mood and brain activity. If they were connected as the argument suggests, they would both have to shift - we couldn't have one be stable and the other keep changing.
(D) gives another reason for both the mood and brain activity.
(E) gives another reason for increased brain activity in happy folks, thus leaving the sad folks with relatively less brain activity.

Does that clear it up?

Apologies to all the psych majors for having depression = sadness and a mood!

[tamwaiman]

On first glance, (A) looks like a weakener - it's a version of what I predicted: the mood (by way of the drug) causes the brain activity. However, it says that depression increases left lobe activity, and the argument says that sad folks have less left lobe activity.

I don't understand why (A) says that depression increases left lobe activity, on the other hand, (A) seems that depression decreases left lobe activity, so many drugs prescribed to cause increased left lobe activity.
IMHO, I think that (A) is wrong probably because it doesn't contradict the cause & effect relationship which the stimulus indicate. (the lobe activity causes the mood)

Please help correct me if my understanding is wrong, thank you!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Answer choice (A) says that the drugs prescribed to combat depression increase left lobe activity. According to answer choice (A) it's not depression (but the drugs used to combat depression) that increases left lobe activity.

You're right on about the flaw in the argument's reasoning. This argument mistakes a correlation for a cause and effect relationship. And we can we can weaken it using our standard approaches.

1. provide an alternative cause
2. provide an example of the presumed cause without the presumed effect
3. provide an example of the presumed effect without the presumed cause

Answer choices (B)-(E) each do one of the above and so can be eliminated.

(B) provides an alternative cause for the lobe activity
(C) provides an example of the occurrence of the presumed cause without the presumed effect
(D) provides an alternative cause for the lobe activity
(E) provides an alternative cause for the lobe activity

Answer choice (A) does not weaken the conclusion about a causal relationship between lobe activity and mood because it actually strengthens the relationship between decreased lobe activity and depression! If drugs prescribed to combat depression act by causing increased lobe activity, then the conclusion that lobe activity is responsible for mood would be supported.

Does that answer your question?

[geverett]

Well played LSAC. Well played.

[jlz1202]

Sorry but I am still confused by E. The conclusion states the causality between lf and mood (roughtly, lf increases would cause mood elevation / lf decreases would cause depression). Then I prephrase the ways to weaken a causality would be: cause and effect reversed / alternative explanation for the effect (mood variation) / deny correlation between the cause and effect.

But E suggests: social interaction causes lf, which provides an alternative explanation for the cause but not the effect. I don't think it helps to weaken the conclusion--I think it should provide an alternative explanation for the effect (mood variation) in the conclusion. Therefore I don't think it does anything to weaken the causality in the conclusion.

Is there anything I have missed? Could anyone please help and pinpoint what exactly does E mean and by what way exactly it weakens the conclusion? I am really confused.......................

Thanks very much!!

[goriano]

I'm still not getting the explanations for (A) and (C).

One thing that is confusing is that it seems to contradict the premise the sad folks have less left lobe activity, but in fact there is no contradiction. Depressed folks could generally show X though a drug that can be used to treat depression might have a different effect.

Could you elaborate on this?

Answer choice (A) does not weaken the conclusion about a causal relationship between lobe activity and mood because it actually strengthens the relationship between decreased lobe activity and depression! If drugs prescribed to combat depression act by causing increased lobe activity, then the conclusion that lobe activity is responsible for mood would be supported.

And could you elaborate on this too? How does (A) strengthen instead of weaken?

(C) provides an example of the occurrence of the presumed cause without the presumed effect

And how does (C) show this?

Thanks!

[oceangirl182]

Hello! I know there's already been a lot of explanation on this question, but could someone please go through the cause/effect again in more detail?

So I understand that the question is presuming a cause/effect relationship between two phenomena that are actually just correlated--it is asserting that mood is caused by lobe activity. Where I am lost is in the application of the 3 ways to weaken a cause/effect relationship in this particular instance. If the presumed cause is lobe activity, and b, d, and e are all giving an alternate cause for lobe activity, isn't that giving an alternate cause for the presumed cause? How does that help prove the correlation is not a cause/effect? Shouldn't we be trying to find an alternate cause for the presumed effect, instead? I see that lobe activity is the main point of contention in the answer choices, but I don't understand why mood is not...I don't know--just somehow bamboozled by this question!!

[WaltGrace1983]

I'll see what I can do on this question. It is definitely a hard one (at least, for me)

THE PROCESS

This is a weaken EXCEPT question so let's focus on the core. After finding the core, we are looking for something that won't necessarily weaken the conclusion but perhaps be out of scope or maybe even strengthen it. A common answer to Strengthen/Weaken EXCEPT questions bear little relevance to the argument so I'll keep that in mind.

A study showed...

Depression correlated with less left frontal lobe activity
+
Good-natured participants correlated with greater left lobe activity
→
Mood is a result of frontal lobe

As you can see, this is a correlation/causation issue. We have two groups of people. One group, the sad group, has less frontal lobe activity. The other group, the happy group, has more frontal lobe activity. The argument thus concludes that the frontal lobe causes mood. However, does this have to be true? Not exactly. There could be a number of reasons why this is not true and the incorrect answers (the weakeners) will probably speak to those reasons:

(1) It could actually be that MOOD causes FRONTAL LOBE ACTIVITY. In other words, it reverses the chain of causality from (FLA → M) to (M → FLA)

Furthermore, it could actually be that MOOD or FRONTAL LOBE ACTIVITY are actually caused by a THIRD thing. Maybe this is all just a big coincidence and something such as where the people live causes frontal lobe activity or perhaps mood elevation/depression. Who knows?

In addition to these, the weakeners could do the following...

2. provide an example of the presumed cause without the presumed effect
3. provide an example of the presumed effect without the presumed cause

What would an example of these be? For 2, an example could be that, "Another survey found multiple participants with a high level of left frontal lobe activity with clinical depression. For 3, an example could be that, "Modern scientists have discovered that depression is actually caused by eating too many Ritz crackers while being good-natured is actually the cause of playing 3+ hours a day of Super Mario Bros."

Now that we are armed with these thoughts. We can take a look at the questions. Someone may offer their own insight but I think it might be easiest to attack this weaken EXCEPT question by searching for the incorrect answers - the weakeners - first.

Just remember, the argument is saying that Frontal Lobe Activity causes mood. Why should we doubt this?

THE ANSWER CHOICES

(A) This refers to how drugs act. In other words, it is just recounting how the drugs do what they do. This doesn't really speak much to the idea of disposition because these drugs are altering your frontal lobe activity. I am not too sure about this one, I'll skip it and return to it later.

(B) This provides an alternative cause by reversing the conditional logic. It basically says that depression causes excessive sleep and excessive sleep causes the suppressed left lobe activity. In other words, "Depression → Sleep → Suppressed Left Lobe Activity." What this is doing is actually flipping the argument around. It is saying, "well the LSAT thinks your brain activity causes your mood. That's not true. (B) thinks that your mood actually causes your brain activity."

***NOTE: (B) would actually have NOT been a weakener if it wasn't for the phrase that says, "a typical consequence of clinical depression." This phrase is instituting an absolutely crucial distinction by showing how depression is the root cause of the brain activity. If it would have just said, "Excessive sleep is known to suppress frontal lobe activity" that wouldn't have done much because we need to prove one of the following:

(1) That the conditional is backwards (this is what B does)
(2) That the mood was actually caused by something else
(3) That the frontal lobe activity didn't cause the mood

(C) This really just boils down to the following phrase, "general disposition is subject to variation." The front part of the sentence is probably just there to confuse you. Either way, if disposition is varied, how can we say that a study done at a particular time in a particular way does anything? This weakens!

(D) This is definitely a weakener because it shows that Frontal Lobe Activity doesn't cause Mood! Why? Because they are both caused by something else! If mood and frontal lobe activity are caused by a third thing then there is serious doubt as to if one causes the other.

(E) This provides the effect - the stimulated left lobe activity of happy people - without the cause. This weakens in the way that we discussed earlier. If we have the effect without the cause, this makes us doubt whether the cause really prompts the effect.

THE CORRECT ANSWER

As we can see, (A) is really the only one that doesn't fit this mold of three ways we can weaken a causal claim. We can select it by POE. Alternatively, we can try to understand it further...

We have already gone over the three ways to weaken a causal claim. What does answer choice do? What is its structure? It's structure is...


"Drugs → Increased Left Lobe Activity."


However, what does the argument say? It says both that...


"Increased Left Lobe Activity → Good nature"
"Decreased Left Lobe Activity → Depression."

Do these two match up? No. Therefore, this answer is really out of scope and doesn't weaken the causal connection at all. In addition, as I said before, we don't really care HOW the drugs do what they do.

Hope that helps.

[ashkoley]

I saw A as a strengthen answer because:
If antidepressants work by increasing your left lobe activity, and the idea of an antidepressant is to make you happy, then this would mean that the lobe activity does affect your disposition. This would be affirming the causal relationship that the conclusion states. This is how I chose this answer, along with eliminating the rest....but I didn't see it as out of scope or irrelevant.
Maybe I'm wrong?
If anything, hope this helps anyone see another way to find the correct answer choice.

[HughM388]

"Which of the following is an assumption required for the argument's conclusion?"

(A) The connection between brain physiology and mood disorder does not describe a feedback loop in which the factors of frontal-lobe activity, general disposition, manifest behavior, and life experience do not all affect each of the other factors involved, such that it is impossible to know which among those factors is the root cause of disorder.

(B) EEG studies have concluded that diet and exercise are not factors involved in causing mood disorders.

(C) Clinical depression has not been well defined by experts on mood disorder.

(D) Psychiatrists are not biased in their interpretation of study results.

(E) The argument has not mistaken a necessary condition for mood disorder for a sufficient condition.