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Making objective facts from intimate relations: the case of neuroscience and its entanglements with volunteers

General Practice and Primary Care Research Unit, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge University, Forvie Site, Cambridge CB2 0SR, UK, simon.cohn{at}medschl.cam.ac.uk

This article explores the way in which the practice of neuroscience, in the form of contemporary brain-imaging, has to actively define and isolate aspects of mindfulness as solely contained within the individual. Although hidden from final scientific accounts, at the centre of this process is the need for the researchers to forge brief but intimate and personal relationships with the volunteers in their studies. With their increasing interest in studying more and more complex mental processes, and in particular as researchers focus on what they term `the social brain', a potential paradox arises from the commitment to the straightforward location of brain function and recognition of the more distributed and intersubjective nature of the objects of their study. Consequently, in order to elicit specific mental activities, such as empathy, the scientists inevitably employ a range of socially based resources, which includes establishing a personal relationship with the volunteers. The scientists themselves see this as ensuring that they can trust that the volunteers will participate in the ways intended. But in contrast, the article argues that the central feature is actually the creation of a sense of intimacy, which serves to align the expectations and experiences of volunteer and researcher. Yet, while this relationship is necessary in order to ensure the required mental state is generated, during the experiment itself a great deal of work is then done to ensure it can be excluded from the final conceptualization of mental activity.

Key Words: empathy • intimacy • neuroscience • social brain

History of the Human Sciences, Vol. 21, No. 4, 86-103 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0952695108095513


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