25 Neuroscience Myths
Busting Common Pop Psychology Myths with Scientific Evidence
The study of the mind, brain, and behaviour (i.e., psychology) has fascinated researchers and the general public for hundreds of years. Perhaps one of the sexiest (in my opinion), and one of the most undiscovered, subfields of this area involves neuroscience, which focuses on the brain, nervous system, and cognitive functioning. With the advent of neuroimaging techniques, like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and positron emission tomography (PET), neuroscientists allowed us to take a glance into the magical human brain and show us how it actually works. The coolness factor of neuroscience has even led to an entire field of marketing, known as neuromarketing, which studies how people’s brains respond to advertising, packaged goods, and brand-related messages. However, with so many unknowns and answers to be discovered, pop psychology fans (and nonscientists who think they are experts in the field) have taken it upon themselves to assume how the brain works without any concrete evidence to support (or sometimes deny) their statements. Below are some of these myths (and I’m sure there are more), that we should all stop repeating.
1. System 1 and System 2 are distinct regions of the brain that explain cognitive processing and behaviour — FALSE
There is no such thing as a dedicated and independent System 1 and System 2 region of the brain. This theory is based on Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, but this dual system theory of cognitive processing lacks any strong empirical evidence, and many articles have been written on the rejection of the concept since it is fraught with errors. In fact, Kahneman himself even mentioned that the two systems are meant to be used as metaphors and that there are no distinct regions in the brain functioning in this manner. (This one fact alone just demonstrates how many people haven’t actually read Kahenman’s book, but still repeat the theory in a broken telephone manner.) Just because a decision-making process is “fast” or “slow” does not inherently mean it is being executed by one system or the other, since personal experience, learning, and heuristics influence all systems of thinking. The brain is a sophisticated and integrated network, which functions holistically across its 86 billion (give or take ~8 billion) neurons to perform various behaviours, regardless of whether the behaviour is implicit, explicit, conscious, or subconscious. The neurons of the brain communicate constantly with each other through all types of “fast” and “slow” cognitive processes and behaviours.
2. The brain is region-specific and different behaviours are controlled by specific brain areas — FALSE
Similar to the explanation above, the brain is an integrated network of many regions and neurons that rarely act independent of each other. There is not a one-to-one mapping between a function or behaviour and a specific location in the brain. Although there are specific regions of the brain that may be more sensitive to certain functions or behaviours, many other brain regions are usually activated as well during this process.
3. 95% of all decisions are subconscious — FALSE
There is no quantifiable empirical evidence to show that a precise proportion of “all decisions” are 95% subconscious. There are slightly different worded versions of this myth, including, “95% of our behaviours are not conscious”, “95 percent of brain activity is unconscious”, and “95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious”. There is some obsession with the number “95%”, and this myth is one of the most falsely quoted statements in neuromarketing and neuroscience in general.
It is virtually impossible to determine exactly how much of every decision under every circumstance in every possible situation is proportionally based on conscious and subconscious cognitive processing.
There is no scientific data to reference this statement, and it would be extremely difficult to accurately measure the exact proportion of conscious or subconscious decisions humans make in a day. It is possible that many decisions are made subconsciously, but it is virtually impossible to determine exactly how much of every decision under every circumstance in every possible situation is proportionally based on conscious and subconscious cognitive processing.
4. We make 35,000 (or any other number of) decisions a day — FALSE
Similar to the myth above, there is no quantifiable empirical evidence to show that we make any specific amount of decisions per day. Daily decisions can be conscious or subconscious, and depending on the person and the complexity of their daily life, decisions can be made on any number of topics (e.g., work, health, food, children, family, driving, vacation, sex, movies, etc.). Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to accurately calculate the amount of decisions humans make in a day since many of those decisions could be forgotten or misremembered. Of course, we are capable of making thousands of decisions a day, but to state an exact number would be to falsely generalize human behaviour.
5. We only use 10% of our brains — FALSE
We use 100% of our brains, and many neuroimaging studies will demonstrate that any given cognitive task or behaviour can excite many different regions of the brain. We may not use 100% of our brains simultaneously for a given behaviour, but across all possible human behaviours and cognitive processes, all regions of our brains may be used. In fact, one MythBusters episode debunked this myth by showing that we use more than 10% of our brains during even the simplest processes such as resting with closed eyes.
6. Some people are “left-brained” while others are “right-brained”– FALSE
There is no scientific evidence for the notion that there are left-brain dominant individuals, who are logical, analytical, and mathematical, and right-brain dominant individuals, who are spontaneous, creative, and artistic. Again, the brain functions holistically as a single (complex) unit across its ~80–90 billion neurons to process all types of tasks. There is no one dominant hemisphere that overrides the majority of one’s behaviour, or elicits a specific type of personality or thinking in an individual.
7. Male and female brains have different structures and functionalities — FALSE
There is no such thing as “male brains” and “female brains”. Overall, there are no major differences between male and female brains in terms of patterns of connectivity or amount of grey or white matter.
There are more unique individual differences within each sex than between sexes, and all brains are more alike than they are different.
Even if there are studies that show some average structural brain differences between sexes, there are more unique individual differences within each sex than between sexes, and all brains are more alike than they are different. Additionally, sex differences in brain structure can be due to a number of reasons, including overall body differences between men and women in general, so these studies cannot infer anything about how these differences relate to behaviour or brain function.
8. Humans have an ancient “reptilian brain” underneath the neocortex that controls our subconscious and immediate emotional reactions toward stimuli — FALSE
This idea, also known as the Triune brain model, states that human evolution developed a brain circuitry that started with the reptilian layer, followed by the limbic and neocortex layers. The correct view of human evolution is that animals did not linearly increase in complexity, but instead evolved from common ancestors. Similarly, brains in all vertebrates evolved to possess the same basic brain regions of the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. The brain works together as a sophisticated network; there is no one single layer that overrides another during cognitive processing or behaviour execution.
9. The brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text — FALSE
This myth is rampant across the internet, yet has absolutely no scientific origin. Think about this statement for a moment using a concrete example: let us say that it takes exactly 1 second to process a certain image; if we multiply this number by 60,000, then it would take nearly 17 hours to process text! Does that even make logical sense? Now it is true that in some contexts, a picture may be processed faster than words, for example, if we compare a simple, small image to a paragraph of words. However, this statement does not even make sense to compare because how it does not consider the size or complexity of the image or text. Thus, it is incorrect to make any general statements that images are processed faster than text because this is just not an equal comparison from a methodology standpoint.
10. Humans have the same attention span as goldfish, about 8 seconds — FALSE
Some of these myths even go as far as to say that humans have a smaller attention span than goldfish, or that humans’ attention spans have been shrinking over the years. However, if humans’ attention spans are only about 8 seconds, then how is it possible to do anything longer than 8 seconds? If our attention spans are so short, it would be impossible to watch a movie, play video games, write a novel, or drive a car, all for hours on end. Even more interesting, research has shown that goldfish can have memories for several weeks, as shown by another fun episode of MythBusters. So, let’s stop giving humans, and goldfish, such a bad reputation for having small attention spans.
11. The brain can process 11 million bits of information per second through unconscious processing, but only 50 bits per second through conscious processing — FALSE
First of all, WTF is a “bit” of information? How do you quantify that? It’s virtually impossible to measure all of the information that is received by the brain through independent conscious and nonconscious routes. Related to the points above, the brain is a vastly interconnected web of neurons with both conscious and nonconscious processing that occurs simultaneously every waking moment. The fact that anybody tried to quantify perceived environmental data with ambiguous units is sheer rubbish.
12. Each person has a unique learning style, with some being visual-, auditory-, or kinesthetic- (tactile) learners — FALSE
Learning styles are a myth. There is no empirical justification to tailor different types of instructions to different students based on different types of learning modalities. Instead, most people generally learn efficiently through a combination of multiple sensory representations of information, which can enhance memory and understanding of all forms of material.
13. The more specialized a behaviour, the more neurons in the brain are used and allocated for that behaviour — FALSE
It is counterintuitive to think of a specialized form of behaviour as having fewer neurons dedicated to its execution. However, through a process called synaptic plasticity, our brains selectively prune other neurons that would otherwise cause interference or inhibition with a more direct and focused neuronal pathway to perform the specialized behaviour. For example, research has shown that expert athletes have less neuronal activity (i.e., more neural efficiency) in brain regions associated with those athletic behaviours, compared to non-experts.
14. Brain damage is always permanent — FALSE
This is somewhat related to the myth that the brain stops developing once you reach a certain age, which is also false. Neuroplasticity enables different connections across various regions of the brain during all types of development. For example, if someone suffers a serious brain injury, the brain will usually find alternative routes to function with undamaged neural pathways.
15. Neuroscience answers “why” people perform certain behaviours — FALSE
Neuroscience techniques can only reliably answer “how” people behave or process information, but they should never answer “why” people behave the way they do.
Neuroscience techniques can only reliably answer “how” people behave or process information, but they should never answer “why” people behave the way they do. For example, if a neuroscience tool, such as skin conductance response, demonstrates physiological arousal when someone is watching a movie, we cannot assume that the person is either excited, scared, surprised, or anxious, because many different stimuli may cause the exact same arousal levels. The question of “why” people perform certain behaviours or feel a certain way may only be asked using more explicit-based questionnaire techniques.
16. Implicit measures of behaviour are better than explicit measures of behaviour — FALSE
To date, some of the most common, reliable, and valid measures of behaviour/personality/attitudes are based on explicit self-report questionnaires because they are the only measures that can provide depth and reasoning into how people feel about the world.
There is a time and place for all forms of implicit and explicit measurement. Implicit measures are used to assess behaviour that is below the awareness of the participant (e.g., how long it takes to solve a puzzle, or how someone’s brain is reacting to a picture). It is used to examine subconscious behaviour as well as preconceived attitudes and bias toward stimuli without the participant knowing the purpose of the study. This contrasts with explicit measurement, in which participants are asked directly about their attitudes and feelings about stimuli and behaviour. To date, some of the most common, reliable, and valid measures of behaviour/personality/attitudes are based on explicit self-report questionnaires because they are the only measures that can provide depth and reasoning into how people feel about the world.
17. Implicit measures always assess fast/quick responses, while explicit measures always assess slow/methodical responses — FALSE
Implicit measures can also be “slow”, and explicit measures can also be “fast”. For example, response times measured from an implicit cognitive task (e.g., the time it takes to solve a game of Where’s Waldo), may take several seconds or minutes, or hours to complete, even though the participant is unaware of any difference in their behavioural performance. Alternatively, explicit responses given by a participant on how they feel about a certain stimulus may take less than a second to verbally express their emotion, even though the participant is fully consciously aware of their decision.
18. Qualitative measures capture better in-depth understanding than quantitative measures — FALSE
Qualitative (i.e., open-ended discussion-based) metrics offer initial insight into a theory and can be used to better interpret quantitative findings. However, the most reliable and valid metrics for any type of attitudinal, emotional, or behavioural context are derived from standardized forms of measurement based on quantitative, empirical data. Asking one-off questions to small samples of individuals based on subjective intuition rarely results in reliable or valid findings that generalize to a population. Even gaining data from small samples of participants can be improved by using standardized measures with coded responses to evaluate a consistent scale across participants.
19. What people say and what people do are drastically different — FALSE
It is true that sometimes what people say and do are different, but it would be untrue to make this general claim for all forms of behaviour. Sometimes, there is a very consistent relationship between what people say and what people do (e.g., a self-proclaimed Apple computer lover may consistently and exclusively buy Apple brand products).
20. Neuroimaging tools, like EEG and fMRI measure human emotions — FALSE
EEG is used for measuring the timing of cognitive processes, while fMRI measures the functional connectivity of brain regions that are most sensitive to specific cognitive processes. Both techniques can infer participant arousal, attention, engagement, and motivation, which may be connected to correlational research with other questionnaire-based data. However, we can never understand how someone is “feeling” using these tools, because they are not used for measuring “emotions”, which are subjective constructs. Neuroimaging tools allow us to understand how the brain responds to specific stimuli, as an indirect approach to map cognitive and functional brain processing. However, emotions can only be evaluated using explicit self-report measures.
21. EEG can be used to measure real-life situations, such as walking and shopping through a store — FALSE
The brain has billions of neurons, and every time a behaviour is performed (e.g., looking, breathing, thinking, talking, chewing, reading, walking, writing, etc.), some of those neurons fire. When those neurons fire, they cause an electrochemical signal to pass on to the next neuron, and so on. During this neuronal activity, some of that electricity gets passed outside of the neural cell, through the other regions of the brain, and eventually through the skull, where those electrical signals (usually measured in millivolts) can be measured at the scalp. These electrical brain waves are what EEG measures. Because EEG is extremely sensitive to any of these brainwaves, it is crucial that participants should not be moving, chewing, talking, blinking, or moving their eyes throughout any study task, because these signals will cause artifacts in the data and alter the proper signal to measure (e.g., how the brain reacts to viewing a certain stimulus). Thus, participants should be resting or seated in a chair viewing a monitor, rather than walking around a room (even though it looks cooler for neuromarketing studies). In other words, if someone is walking around a room while wearing an EEG headset, the measurement is most likely to detect noisy signals from movement alone rather than how that person’s brain is responding to their environment.
22. EEG measures the location of where in the brain cognitive processes are happening — FALSE
EEG is very accurate at measuring temporal information (i.e. when a cognitive process occurs); however, it is not accurate at measuring spatial information (i.e., where a cognitive process occurs in the brain, which is the specialty of fMRI). EEG measures the summed electrical potential of cognitive processes at the scalp, but that signal could have originated from multiple areas at different regions within the brain. For example, a brain wave that is measured at the back of the scalp could have potentially originated from the front of the brain, but that brain wave was simply maximal at the posterior area of the scalp.
23. Small differences in reaction times (e.g., in the range of milliseconds) for different cognitive task conditions are not meaningful differences in real life — FALSE
When dealing with cognitive tasks, a 20–50 ms difference between conditions can have a very meaningful difference in understanding brain processing.
Since the connections of cognitive processes are so fast, a small difference can mean a large difference in brain functioning.
A difference this small may not seem like anything special since it takes more than double or triple that time to blink one’s eyes. However, neurons in the brain can fire at speeds of up to 120 m/s (270 mph). Since the connections of cognitive processes are so fast, a small difference can mean a large difference in brain functioning. As an analogy, when running a marathon, the difference between the first place and second place runner might be several minutes, which makes sense since the race is so long, and the runners are not moving very fast; however, in a 100 m sprint, the difference between the first place and second place runner might be less than a hundredth of a second since the runners are moving so fast over such a small distance. It would be difficult to argue that the difference between first place and second place in the sprint was essentially the “same” and not meaningful. This is because each runner ran their fastest and a slight edge could mean the difference between gold and silver medals.
24. Human memory is highly accurate, especially when participants are confident in their responses — FALSE
Human memory is very prone to error since our brains typically fill in gaps and alter previously encoded memories with new memories and different contexts continually. Even so-called “flashbulb memories” (i.e., detailed/vivid memories stored from specific occasions, usually associated with important historical or autobiographical events) are prone to inaccuracies. Furthermore, it does not matter how confident a person is when recalling specific memories since humans can be brainwashed by their own new experiences over time.
25. Humans are irrational beings, acting completely out of erroneous emotion, rather than logical cognition — FALSE
If we had to consciously think about every waking moment of our lives, we wouldn’t be able to focus on any number of more important things in life.
There is a perception that humans are mindless, happy-go-lucky, beings with no rational perception of their world. Some examples supporting this notion are when people don’t save enough money for retirement, or when they eat unhealthy foods. However, these “irrational” behaviours may not be irrational at all. For example, many individuals simply cannot afford to save money for an unknown future that can have unpredictable events decades from now, when it is difficult enough to focus on the necessities of today; the same goes for eating unhealthy foods, since the pleasure of eating a donut today outweighs a possibly healthier future, since you may get hit by a bus tomorrow. Additionally, if humans were so irrational, then we wouldn’t be able to put a man on the moon or accomplish the numerous other incredible achievements in history. Second, using “irrational” heuristics in everyday life can be quite advantageous, including all of our (sometimes incorrect) biases of decision-making. If we had to consciously think about every waking moment of our lives (e.g., what to eat, how to walk, etc.), then we wouldn’t be able to focus on any number of more important things in life.
Adam is a seasoned researcher with extensive academic training and hands-on experience in various scientific methodologies. Specializing in human factors studies, Adam applies his expertise to drive advancements in both research and commercial applications across diverse market sectors. With a PhD in Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience Psychology, Adam brings innovative research methodologies and a passion for unraveling human behaviour. Connect with him on LinkedIn to join the conversation!
