metallicafan wrote:
I agree with the OA.

However, C is tempting too. It seems that choice C indicates that the causal relationship is NOT: disposition ----> lobe activity.

So, that would confirm the original conclusion that the causal relationship is: lobe activity ------> disposition. Therefore, this would not weak the argument.

What do you think?

OA: _A_

okay man it was a hard time solving it.

Further evidence of a connection between brain physiology and psychological states has recently been uncovered in the form of a correlation between electrencephalograph patterns and characteristic moods. A study showed that participants who suffered from clinical depression exhibited less left frontal lobe activity than right, while, conversely, characteristically good-natured participants exhibited greater left lobe activity. Thus one's general disposition is a result of the activity of one's frontal lobe.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the argument, EXCEPT:

(a) Many drugs prescribed to combat clinical depression act by causing increased left lobe activity--> CORRECT as it is directly related to the premise stated and bolsters it.

(b) Excessive sleep, a typical consequence of clinical depression, is known to suppress left lobe activity.--> just the opposite of what we want

(c) Frontal lobe activity is not subject to variation the way general disposition is.--> dont know which way general disposition varies, may be it varies some other way or in world there might be some way it varies wrt disposition. Furthermore, it has not been mentioned here that lobe is independent of disposition.

(d) Earlier studies indicated that frontal lobe activity and emotive states are both caused by activity in the brain's limbic system.--> this just refutes the conclusion and hence weakens.

(e) Social interaction of the kind not engaged in by most clinically depressed people is known to stimulate left lobe activity.--> again it just states a new theory of interdependency of lobe and depressed ones.