ABSTRACT
This chapter presents specific examples of nontheories and prototheories of how the brain represents or encodes cognitive processes. It deals with some data analysis techniques that have the proclivity to be so misinterpreted. Meta-analytic technique is specifically designed to distinguish germane signals from noise and briefly introduces a much broader group of methods collectively known as Statistical Parametric Mapping. The ultimate goal for cognitive neuroscientists is to explain mind-brain relationships, although data analysis techniques are a necessary preliminary step to assure that the data on which cognitive neuroscience theories are based are valid, they are neither descriptive or reductive theories. Neuroeconomics and others of its ilk are frail prototheories because the supporting data do not exist it takes us beyond the speculative dreams. The main reason for both the flimsiness of theory and the paucity of evidence in the fields are conceptual that still seems to be insurmountable barriers standing between the most robust postulates of neurophysiology and behavior.
