Correction to: 'Raising the value of research studies in psychological science by increasing the credibility of research reports: The Transparent Psi Project' (2023) by Kekecs et al.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191375.][This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.2500.].

The Psychological Science Accelerator's COVID-19 rapid-response dataset.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data.

Raising the value of research studies in psychological science by increasing the credibility of research reports: the transparent Psi project.

The low reproducibility rate in social sciences has produced hesitation among researchers in accepting published findings at their face value. Despite the advent of initiatives to increase transparency in research reporting, the field is still lacking tools to verify the credibility of research reports. In the present paper, we describe methodologies that let researchers craft highly credible research and allow their peers to verify this credibility. We demonstrate the application of these methods in a multi-laboratory replication of Bem's Experiment 1 (Bem 2011 J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 407-425. (doi:10.1037/a0021524)) on extrasensory perception (ESP), which was co-designed by a consensus panel including both proponents and opponents of Bem's original hypothesis. In the study we applied direct data deposition in combination with born-open data and real-time research reports to extend transparency to protocol delivery and data collection. We also used piloting, checklists, laboratory logs and video-documented trial sessions to ascertain as-intended protocol delivery, and external research auditors to monitor research integrity. We found 49.89% successful guesses, while Bem reported 53.07% success rate, with the chance level being 50%. Thus, Bem's findings were not replicated in our study. In the paper, we discuss the implementation, feasibility and perceived usefulness of the credibility-enhancing methodologies used throughout the project.

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 12 May 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4878591.v1.

The Psychological Science Accelerator: Advancing Psychology through a Distributed Collaborative Network.

Concerns have been growing about the veracity of psychological research. Many findings in psychological science are based on studies with insufficient statistical power and nonrepresentative samples, or may otherwise be limited to specific, ungeneralizable settings or populations. Crowdsourced research, a type of large-scale collaboration in which one or more research projects are conducted across multiple lab sites, offers a pragmatic solution to these and other current methodological challenges. The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is a distributed network of laboratories designed to enable and support crowdsourced research projects. These projects can focus on novel research questions, or attempt to replicate prior research, in large, diverse samples. The PSA's mission is to accelerate the accumulation of reliable and generalizable evidence in psychological science. Here, we describe the background, structure, principles, procedures, benefits, and challenges of the PSA. In contrast to other crowdsourced research networks, the PSA is ongoing (as opposed to time-limited), efficient (in terms of re-using structures and principles for different projects), decentralized, diverse (in terms of participants and researchers), and inclusive (of proposals, contributions, and other relevant input from anyone inside or outside of the network). The PSA and other approaches to crowdsourced psychological science will advance our understanding of mental processes and behaviors by enabling rigorous research and systematically examining its generalizability.

Revelation effects in remembering, forecasting, and perspective taking.

The revelation effect is a robust phenomenon in episodic memory whereby stimuli that immediately follow a simple cognitive task are more likely to garner positive responses on a variety of memory tests, including autobiographical memory judgments. Six experiments investigated the revelation effect for judgments of past and future events as well as judgments made from others' perspectives. The purpose of this work was to determine whether these subjectively distinct judgments are subject to the same decision-making biases, as might be expected if they are governed by similar processes (e.g., Schacter, Addis, & Buckner 2007). College-aged participants were asked to rate a variety of life events according to whether the events had occurred during their childhoods or would occur during the next 10 years. Events that followed an anagram task were judged as more likely to have happened in the past and more likely to occur in the future. We also showed a revelation effect when participants were asked to adopt the perspective of others when making judgments about past and future events. When the task was reworded to be non-episodic (participants judged how common the events were during childhood and adulthood), no revelation effect was found for either past or future time frames, which suggests common boundary conditions for both types of judgments. The results are consistent with studies showing strong parallels between remembering and other forms of self-projection but not with semantic memory judgments.

Selective attention meets spontaneous recognition memory: Evidence for effects at retrieval.

Previous research on the effects of Divided Attention on recognition memory have shown consistent impairments during encoding but more variable effects at retrieval. The present study explored whether effects of Selective Attention at retrieval and subsequent testing were parallel to those of Divided Attention. Participants studied a list of pictures and then had a recognition memory test that included both full attention and selective attention (the to be responded to object was overlaid atop a blue outlined object) trials. All participants then completed a second recognition memory test. The results of 2 experiments suggest that subsequent tests consistently show impacts of the status of the ignored stimulus, and that having an initial test changes performance on a later test. The results are discussed in relation to effect of attention on memory more generally as well as spontaneous recognition memory research.

Self-projection in younger and older adults: a study of episodic memory, prospection, and theory of mind.

Self-projection is the ability to orient the self in different places in time and space. Episodic memory, prospection, and theory of mind (ToM) are all cognitive abilities that share an element of self-projection. Previous research has posited that each of these abilities stems from the same neural network. The current study compared performance of cognitively healthy older adults and younger adults on several self-projection tasks to examine the relatedness of these constructs behaviorally. Episodic memory and prospection were measured using an episodic interview task where the participants were asked to remember or imagine events that either had happened in the past or could happen in the future and then gave ratings describing the extent to which they were mentally experiencing the event and from what perspective they viewed it. ToM was measured by asking participants to make judgments regarding the intentions of characters described in stories that involved cognitive, affective, or ironic components. Our results demonstrate that aging influences episodic memory, prospection, and ToM similarly: older adult participants showed declines on each of these measures compared to younger adults. Further, we observed correlations between performance on the measures of episodic memory and prospection as well as between episodic memory and ToM, although no correlation between prospection and ToM was observed after controlling for chronological age. We discuss these results in the light of theories suggesting that each of these abilities is governed by a common brain system.

Response to Comment on "Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science".

Gilbert et al. conclude that evidence from the Open Science Collaboration's Reproducibility Project: Psychology indicates high reproducibility, given the study methodology. Their very optimistic assessment is limited by statistical misconceptions and by causal inferences from selectively interpreted, correlational data. Using the Reproducibility Project: Psychology data, both optimistic and pessimistic conclusions about reproducibility are possible, and neither are yet warranted.

Reliability and validity of neurobehavioral function on the Psychology Experimental Building Language test battery in young adults.

Background. The Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL) software consists of over one-hundred computerized tests based on classic and novel cognitive neuropsychology and behavioral neurology measures. Although the PEBL tests are becoming more widely utilized, there is currently very limited information about the psychometric properties of these measures. Methods. Study I examined inter-relationships among nine PEBL tests including indices of motor-function (Pursuit Rotor and Dexterity), attention (Test of Attentional Vigilance and Time-Wall), working memory (Digit Span Forward), and executive-function (PEBL Trail Making Test, Berg/Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Iowa Gambling Test, and Mental Rotation) in a normative sample (N = 189, ages 18-22). Study II evaluated test-retest reliability with a two-week interest interval between administrations in a separate sample (N = 79, ages 18-22). Results. Moderate intra-test, but low inter-test, correlations were observed and ceiling/floor effects were uncommon. Sex differences were identified on the Pursuit Rotor (Cohen's d = 0.89) and Mental Rotation (d = 0.31) tests. The correlation between the test and retest was high for tests of motor learning (Pursuit Rotor time on target r = .86) and attention (Test of Attentional Vigilance response time r = .79), intermediate for memory (digit span r = .63) but lower for the executive function indices (Wisconsin/Berg Card Sorting Test perseverative errors = .45, Tower of London moves = .15). Significant practice effects were identified on several indices of executive function. Conclusions. These results are broadly supportive of the reliability and validity of individual PEBL tests in this sample. These findings indicate that the freely downloadable, open-source PEBL battery (http://pebl.sourceforge.net) is a versatile research tool to study individual differences in neurocognitive performance.

Sex, but not Apolipoprotein E Polymorphism, Differences in Spatial Performance in Young Adults.

The purpose of this study was to examine how sex and apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype contribute to individual differences in spatial learning and memory. The associations of APOE genotype with neurocognitive function have been well studied among the elderly but less is known at earlier ages. Young adults (n = 169, 88 females) completed three neurocognitive tasks: mental rotation, spatial span, and Memory Island, a spatial navigation test. Males outperformed females on all three tasks: finding the hidden targets more quickly on Memory Island (Cohen's d = 0.62) and obtaining higher scores on mental rotation (d = 0.54) and spatial span (d = 0.37). In contrast, no significant effects of APOE were observed. The identified sex differences elaborate upon past literature documenting sexually dimorphic performance on specific neurobehavioral tasks.

Not enough familiarity for fluency: definitional encoding increases familiarity but does not lead to fluency attribution in associative recognition.

Five experiments were conducted to test whether encoding manipulations thought to encourage unitization would affect fluency attribution in associative recognition memory. Experiments 1a and 1b, which utilized a speeded recognition memory test, demonstrated that definitional encoding increased reliance on familiarity during the recognition memory test. Experiments 2a, 2b, and 3, however, replicated previous research that had shown that fluency is unlikely to be attributed as evidence of previous occurrence in associative recognition (Westerman, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 27:723-732, 2001). The results put limits on the degree to which fluency can influence recognition memory judgments, even in cases of enhanced familiarity, and are consistent with previous work suggesting that participants have preexperimental expectations about fluency that are difficult to change (e.g., Miller, Lloyd, & Westerman, Journal of Memory and Language 58:1080-1094, 2008), as well as with work suggesting that fluency has less of an influence on recognition memory decisions that are conceptual in nature (Parks, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 39:1280-1286, 2013).

Non-replication of an association of Apolipoprotein E2 with sinistrality.

A recent report found that left-handed adolescents were more than three times more likely to have an Apolipoprotein (APOE) ϵ2 allele. This study was unable to replicate this association in young adults (N=166). A meta-analysis of nine other datasets (N=360 to 7559, Power > 0.999) including that of National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center also failed to find an over-representation of ϵ2 among left-handers indicating that this earlier outcome was most likely a statistical artefact.

Are two heuristics better than one? The fluency and distinctiveness heuristics in recognition memory.

Four experiments were conducted to test the impact of having multiple heuristics (distinctiveness and fluency) available during a recognition test. Recent work by Gallo, Perlmutter, Moore, and Schacter (Memory & Cognition 36:461-466, 2008) suggested that fluency effects are reduced when the distinctiveness heuristic can be applied to a recognition decision. In Experiment 1, we used a response reversal paradigm (Van Zandt & Maldonado-Molina Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 30:1147-1166, 2004) to demonstrate that participants transitioned from an early response strategy that was largely reliant on fluency to a later strategy in which the influences of fluency and distinctiveness were both observable. Experiments 2a, 2b, and 3 showed no evidence for reduction of the fluency heuristic after picture study when the test required a delayed response (Exp. 2a), confidence ratings (Exp. 2b), or the application of conceptual fluency (Exp. 3). The results are consistent with models of memory that assume that familiarity and recollection influence individual memory decisions Wixted (Psychological Review, 114:152-176, 2007).

Bioavailable IGF-I is associated with fat-free mass gains after physical training in women.

UNLABELLED: The contributions of systemic versus local insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) action for mediating fat-free mass (FFM) accretion have yet to be fully clarified, but circulating IGF-I is the preferred measure in clinical practice, and its merits as a biomarker have been demonstrated for a number of physiological outcomes. PURPOSE: To test the hypothesis that bioavailable IGF-I would have a stronger association with physical activity-induced FFM accretion than total IGF-I and would serve as a prognostic indicator of FFM accretion. METHODS: Seventy-seven young healthy women (21 ± 5 yr, 62.7 ± 8.5 kg, 27.0% ± 6.0% body fat) participated in 8 wk of Army basic training involving intense physical activity. Total and bioavailable IGF-I; IGF binding proteins (IGFBP) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6; and body composition parameters were measured before and after the training. RESULTS: There were significant (P≤0.05) increases in FFM (6%) and decreases in fat mass (-13%). Total IGF-I and IGFBP-4 to -6 increased, whereas IGFBP-1 and IGFBP-2 decreased. Bioavailable IGF-I (24%) explained three times the amount of variance in relative FFM changes than did total IGF-I (8%). Receiver operator characteristic curve analysis revealed that women with lower baseline bioavailable IGF-I were twice as likely to experience FFM gains >7%. Women gaining >7% FFM had greater increases in total IGF-I, maintained bioavailable IGF-I concentrations and experienced greater decreases in IGFBP-2 and increases in IGFBP-6 than those women gaining <7% FFM. CONCLUSIONS: Circulating bioavailable IGF-I has a moderate association with physical activity-induced increases in FFM accretion in young, healthy women, and this association is greater than observed for total IGF-I.

Learning about frequency on the fly: Recent experience changes strategies regarding linguistic frequency in recognition memory.

In the present study, the author examines whether participants can adjust recognition response strategies to account for the effects of linguistic frequency. Experiment 1 used a counterfeit-list technique to replicate findings that indicate that participants exhibit a bias toward choosing high-frequency lures. Experiment 2 demonstrates that when participants are exposed to a training phase that includes an opportunity to recognize high- and low-frequency words, participants no longer demonstrate a significant bias toward choosing high-frequency items on the counterfeit list task. Experiments 3 and 4 examine how participants learn to adjust for linguistic frequency by manipulating the information available during training. The results demonstrate that participants use information from the training phase indicating that high word frequency is a good cue to oldness to guide their memory decisions during the counterfeit list task, but do not use training phase information indicating that low frequency is the best cue to oldness in a similar fashion.

Familiarity from orthographic information: extensions of the recognition without identification effect.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of letter location information in recognition memory judgments. The experiments used the recognition without identification paradigm (Peynircioglu, 1990), in which participants first attempt to identify the test item and then make a recognition decision as to whether or not the item was studied. In these studies, items that are not identified but that correspond to items that were presented are typically still rated as more likely to have been studied than those that were not presented. The present experiments demonstrated this finding with a variant of the conjunction lure paradigm. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were tested with word fragments that were made from the letters of two words. When the letters were from studied items, fragments were rated higher than when the test items were derived from two unstudied items, or one studied item and one unstudied item, suggesting that recognition without identification is prone to the same types of errors as recognition with identification. Results are discussed in terms of familiarity effects in recognition memory.

Are first impressions lasting impressions? An exploration of the generality of the primacy effect in memory for repetitions.

In five experiments, we investigated the primacy effect in memory for repetitions (DiGirolamo & Hintzman, 1997), the finding that when participants are shown a study list that contains two very similar versions of the same stimulus, memory is biased in the direction of the version that was presented first. In the experiments reported, the generality of the effect was examined by manipulating the orientation and features of the repeated stimuli. The results confirmed that the effect is reliable when stimulus changes affect the accidental properties of the stimulus (properties of the stimulus that give information about distance or angle but do little to aid in identification). However, the effect was not found when changes were made to other aspects of the stimulus. The results suggest that the primacy effect in memory for repetitions is not robust across all stimulus changes and converge with previous findings that have demonstrated that such properties of stimuli as orientation and size are represented differently in memory than are other stimulus characteristics.

Change in perceptual form attenuates the use of the fluency heuristic in recognition.

Four experiments (total N=295) were conducted to determine whether within-modality changes in perceptual form between the study and the test phases of an experiment would moderate the role of the fluency heuristic in recognition memory. Experiment 1 showed that a change from pictures to words reduced the role of fluency in recognition memory. In Experiment 2, the same result was found using counterfeit study lists that supposedly consisted of pictures or words. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that changes in the font used to present the study and test words also attenuated the contribution of fluency to the recognition decision when font change was manipulated between subjects, but not within subjects. Results suggest that the fluency heuristic is subject to metacognitive control, since participants' attributions of perceptual fluency depend on the perceived usefulness of fluency as a cue to recognition.