Argument Evaluation

This question requires us to find a statement that would provide additional support for the researchers' conclusion that monitoring region X can provide warning that an error is about to be made by someone engaged in a repetitive task.

Note that researchers had observed during brain scans that cognitive-processing regions of the brain remained active when a repetitive task was performed correctly. These regions became less active, and brain region X became active, several seconds before errors were made.

Certainly, further research showing such errors being preceded by the onset of activity in region X would strengthen the researchers' conclusion—this would help rule out that the researchers had simply noticed an unusual coincidence.

However, what would be even more helpful would be to indicate that whenever significant activity in someone's region X occurs, this person is definitively engaged in repetitive tasks and is about to make an error.

To see why this would be helpful, consider: if such activity in region X frequently happened, even when no errors were about to be made, monitoring such activity would not be helpful as a warning that an error was impending. Therefore, ruling this out would support the conclusion.

A. Note that this does not indicate that cognitive effort diminishes; it merely indicates that the amount of such effort required diminishes. Even more important, it tells us nothing about activity in region X.

B. This indicates what sometimes happens after errors are made. However, it gives us no information about what happens soon before an error. Information about that, of course, is what we need if we are trying to determine whether something can provide warning of an impending error.

C. Correct. As indicated above, the conclusion would be well supported by research suggesting that whenever region X has significant activity, this is usually during repetitive tasks and soon before an error occurs.

D. This does not provide additional support for the claim that monitoring region X will be useful as a warning of an impending error. After all, the statement that activity in region X began at least 5 seconds before the errors occurred rules out only that the increase in activity in region X occurred less than 5 seconds before the errors occurred. This statement does not rule out the possibility that the increase came, for example, many hours before the error occurred.

E. Such a discovery may help researchers discover why the errors occurred. However, it does not help support the claim that monitoring region X could provide a warning of impending error.

The correct answer is C.