Text 1: Pharmacologist Diaz argues that placebo effects are real and measurable. In studies of pain management, patients given inert sugar pills often report significant relief, and brain imaging shows real changes in pain-processing regions. The placebo effect, Diaz contends, is not patient self-deception but a genuine physiological response.
Text 2: Statistician Hoag does not deny the existence of placebo responses but cautions against overstating them. Many "placebo effects" in the literature, she argues, reflect natural recovery, measurement noise, or patients' desire to please researchers — not physiological response to the inert pill. Without rigorous controls, she warns, placebos can appear more powerful than they are.
The authors most clearly disagree about
- A
whether brain imaging exists.
- Bcheck_circle
whether all reported placebo effects reflect genuine physiological response.
- C
whether sugar pills contain medicine.
- D
whether some placebo response exists.
Explanation
Both accept some placebo response. They differ on whether reported effects are all genuine or partly artifacts. B captures the dispute.