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Most empirical papers in psychology involve statistical analyses performed on a new or existing dataset. Sometimes the robustness of a finding is demonstrated via data-analytical triangulation (e.g., obtaining comparable outcomes across different operationalizations of the dependent variable), but systematically considering the plethora of alternative analysis pathways is rather uncommon. However, researchers increasingly recognize the importance of establishing the robustness of a finding. The latter can be accomplished through a so-called multiverse analysis, which involves methodically examining the arbitrary choices pertaining to data processing and/or model building. In the present paper, we describe how the multiverse approach can be implemented in student research projects within psychology programs, drawing on our personal experience as instructors. Embedding a multiverse project in students’ curricula addresses an important scientific need, as studies examining the robustness or fragility of phenomena are largely lacking in psychology. Additionally, it offers students an ideal opportunity to put various statistical methods into practice, thereby also raising awareness about the abundance and consequences of arbitrary decisions in data-analytic processing. An attractive practical feature is that one can reuse existing datasets, which proves especially useful when resources are limited, or when circumstances such as the COVID-19 lockdown measures restrict data collection possibilities.

People have been shown to link particular sounds with particular shapes. For instance, the round-sounding nonword bouba tends to be associated with curved shapes, whereas the sharp-sounding nonword kiki is deemed to be related to angular shapes. People's tendency to associate sounds and shapes has been observed across different languages. In the present study, we reexamined the claim by Hung, Styles, and Hsieh (2017) that such sound-shape mappings can occur before an individual becomes aware of the visual stimuli. More precisely, we replicated their first experiment, in which congruent and incongruent stimuli (e.g., bouba presented in a round shape or an angular shape, respectively) were rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. The results showed that congruent combinations, on average, broke suppression faster than incongruent combinations, thus providing converging evidence for Hung and colleagues' assertions. Collectively, these findings now provide a solid basis from which to explore the boundary conditions of the effect. ispartof: Psychological Science vol:30 issue:11 ispartof: location:United States status: Published online

Stress is often associated with negative consequences, and this also applies in the context of memory retrieval. However, Smith, Hughes, et al. (2019) proposed that this relationship only holds for information stored in episodic memory, because it relies on the hippocampus. In contrast, conceptual knowledge is stored in semantic memory, which is associated with neocortical and striatal brain regions that are upregulated during stress. Indeed, Smith, Hughes, et al. (2019) found that people experiencing acute psychosocial stress performed better on a subsequent trivia questionnaire compared to a control group. Moreover, performance correlated positively with cortisol reactivity. These findings are important, novel, and perhaps somewhat surprising, hence it is important to establish their generalizability. The latter is accomplished in the present study through a multiverse analysis. The results showed that the effect is relatively robust to variations in the scoring rules for the trivia questionnaire, the type of statistical model being used, and the inclusion versus exclusion of gender as a covariate in the analyses. However, we obtained mostly null effects when using the change in psychological stress levels as a predictor variable, and/or when only considering questions that were actually answered. The latter finding in particular is worrisome as it might point to alternative explanations. That is, stress might improve performance, because participants are more engaged with the task or are more prone to guess, regardless of its (potential) impact on semantic memory retrieval. Hence, it is premature to conclude that stress enhances semantic memory.

Science is often perceived to be a self-correcting enterprise. In principle, the assessment of scientific claims is supposed to proceed in a cumulative fashion, with the reigning theories of the day progressively approximating truth more accurately over time. In practice, however, cumulative self-correction tends to proceed less efficiently than one might naively suppose. Far from evaluating new evidence dispassionately and infallibly, individual scientists often cling stubbornly to prior findings. Here we explore the dynamics of scientific self-correction at an individual rather than collective level. In 13 written statements, researchers from diverse branches of psychology share why and how they have lost confidence in one of their own published findings. We qualitatively characterize these disclosures and explore their implications. A cross-disciplinary survey suggests that such loss-of-confidence sentiments are surprisingly common among members of the broader scientific population yet rarely become part of the public record. We argue that removing barriers to self-correction at the individual level is imperative if the scientific community as a whole is to achieve the ideal of efficient self-correction. ispartof: PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE vol:16 issue:6 pages:1255-1269 ispartof: location:United States status: published

We examine schoolchildren’s reasoning with spatial relations, such as ‘is to the left of’. Our aims are to obtain a more precise account of the effect of working memory on reasoning, a more detailed understanding of the internal representation of mental models and a developmental perspective. We discuss two experiments in which 348 children, between eight and twelve years old, needed to verify conclusions for 24 reasoning problems describing the spatial relations between pieces of clothing. In both experiments, children in the experimental condition were allowed to take notes by means of paper and pencil. We find that the participants spontaneously draw iconic representations of the items’ spatial ordering, have a strong preference for only considering one possible state of affairs even when more are relevant, and that an explanation in terms of working memory capacity alone cannot fully explain the data.

ispartof: Nature Human Behaviour vol:4 issue:12 pages:1-1 ispartof: location:England status: Published online

Science is self-correcting, or so the adage goes, but to what extent is that indeed the case? Answering this question requires careful consideration of the various approaches to achieve the collective goal of self-correction. One of the most straightforward mechanisms is individual self-correction: researchers rectifying their own mistakes by publishing a correction notice. Although it offers an efficient route to correcting the scientific record, it has received little to no attention from a metascientific point of view. We aim to fill this void by analysing the content of correction notices published from 2010 until 2018 in the three psychology journals featuring the highest number of corrections over that timespan based on the Scopus database (i.e. Psychological Science with N = 58, Frontiers in Psychology with N = 99 and Journal of Affective Disorders with N = 57). More concretely, we examined which aspects of the original papers were affected (e.g. hypotheses, data-analyses, metadata such as author order, affiliations, funding information etc.) as well as the perceived implications for the papers’ main findings. Our exploratory analyses showed that many corrections involved inconsequential errors. Furthermore, authors rarely revised their conclusions, even though several corrections concerned changes to the results. We conclude with a discussion of current policies, and suggest ways to improve upon the present situation by (i) preventing mistakes, and (ii) transparently rectifying those mistakes that do find their way into the literature.

Apparent evidence for unconscious sound symbolism is probably artifactual: Commentary on Heyman, Maerten, Vankrunkelsven, Voorspoels and Moors (in press). Sound-symbolism effects in the absence of awareness: A replication study. Psychological Science, 0956797619875482. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619875482

Dishonesty is an intriguing phenomenon, studied extensively across various disciplines due to its impact on people’s lives as well as society in general. To examine dishonesty in a controlled setting, researchers have developed a number of experimental paradigms. One of the most popular approaches in this regard, is the matrix task, in which participants receive matrices wherein they have to find two numbers that sum to 10 (e.g., 4.81 and 5.19), under time pressure. In a next phase, participants need to report how many matrices they had solved correctly, allowing them the opportunity to cheat by exaggerating their performance in order to get a larger reward. Here, we argue, both on theoretical and empirical grounds, that the matrix task is ill-suited to study dishonest behavior, primarily because it conflates cheating with honest mistakes. We therefore recommend researchers to use different paradigms to examine dishonesty, and treat (previous) findings based on the matrix task with due caution. ispartof: Collabra. Psychology vol:6 issue:1 pages:1-8 status: Published online

Some words are lexically suggestive about the taxonomic position of their referent (e.g., jellyfish in English), and this information can vary across languages (e.g., in Dutch the equivalent of jellyfish holds no taxonomic information: kwal). To evaluate the role of such lexical suggestions, we conducted a cross-linguistic study in which similarity judgements from two language groups (Dutch and English speakers) were compared. We paired asymmetrically informative items with items that are considered to be typical members of the referenced category (e.g., jellyfish–salmon). Our analyses revealed that items were deemed more similar by speakers of a language in which the lexical information was present (e.g., English speakers tended to give relatively higher ratings for jellyfish–salmon than Dutch participants did for the non-informative equivalent kwal–zalm). Results are discussed in light of theories of concept representation and compound processing.

The present study investigates category intension in school-aged children and adults at two different levels of abstraction (i.e., superordinate and basic level) for two category types (i.e., artefacts and natural kinds). We addressed two critical questions: what kind of features do children and adults generate to define semantic categories and which features predict category membership judgment best at each abstraction level? Overall, participants generated relatively more entity features for natural kinds categories, compared to artefact categories, as well as for basic level categories, compared to superordinate categories. Furthermore, the results showed that older children and adults generated relatively more entity features than younger children. Finally, situation features play the most important role in the prediction of category judgments at both levels of abstraction. Theoretical implications and comparable results from previous studies are described in detail. ispartof: Acta Psychologica vol:178 pages:114-123 ispartof: location:Netherlands status: published

Semantic priming, the phenomenon that a target is recognized faster if it is preceded by a semantically related prime, is a well-established effect. However, the mechanisms producing semantic priming are subject of debate. Several theories assume that the underlying processes are controllable and tuned to prime utility. In contrast, purely automatic processes, like automatic spreading activation, should be independent of the prime's usefulness. The present study sought to disentangle both accounts by creating a situation where prime processing is actually detrimental. Specifically, participants were asked to quickly complete word fragments with either the letter a or e (e.g., sh_ve to be completed as shave). Critical fragments were preceded by a prime that was either related (e.g., push) or unrelated (write) to a prohibited completion of the target (e.g., shove). In 2 experiments, we found a significant inhibitory priming effect, which is inconsistent with purely "rational" explanations of semantic priming. (PsycINFO Database Record

Many researchers have tried to predict semantic priming effects using a myriad of variables (e.g., prime–target associative strength or co-occurrence frequency). The idea is that relatedness varies across prime–target pairs, which should be reflected in the size of the priming effect (e.g., cat should prime dog more than animal does). However, it is only insightful to predict item-level priming effects if they can be measured reliably. Thus, in the present study we examined the split-half and test–retest reliabilities of item-level priming effects under conditions that should discourage the use of strategies. The resulting priming effects proved extremely unreliable, and reanalyses of three published priming datasets revealed similar cases of low reliability. These results imply that previous attempts to predict semantic priming were unlikely to be successful. However, one study with an unusually large sample size yielded more favorable reliability estimates, suggesting that big data, in terms of items and participants, should be the future for semantic priming research. ispartof: Behavior Research Methods vol:50 issue:6 pages:2173-2183 ispartof: location:United States status: published

The present research investigates semantic priming with an adapted version of the word fragment completion task. In this task, which we refer to as the speeded word fragment completion task, participants need to complete words like lett_ce (lettuce), from which one letter was omitted, as fast as possible. This paradigm has some interesting qualities in comparison to the traditionally used lexical decision task. That is, it requires no pseudo words, it is more engaging for participants, and most importantly, it allows for a more fine-grained investigation of semantic activation. In two studies we found that words are completed faster when the preceding trial comprised a semantically related fragment like tom_to (tomato) than when it comprised an unrelated fragment like guit_r (guitar). A third experiment involved a lexical decision task to compare both paradigms. The results showed that the magnitude of the priming effect was similar, but item level priming effects were inconsistent over tasks. Crucially, the speeded word fragment completion task obtained strong priming effects for highly frequent, central words like work, money, and warm whereas the lexical decision task did not. In a final experiment featuring only short, highly frequent words, the lexical decision task failed to find a priming effect, while the fragment completion task did obtain a robust effect. Taken together, the speeded word fragment completion task may prove a viable alternative to examine semantic priming. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0496-5 ispartof: Behavior Research Methods vol:47 issue:2 pages:580-606 ispartof: location:United States status: published

The current study examines the underlying processes of semantic priming using the largest priming database available (i.e., Semantic Priming Project, Hutchison et al. Behavior Research Methods, 45(4), 1099-1114, 2013). Specifically, it compares priming effects in two tasks: lexical decision and pronunciation. Task similarities were assessed at two different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) (i.e., 200 and 1,200 ms) and for both primary and other associates. To evaluate how consistent priming is across these two tasks, item-level priming effects obtained in each task were correlated for each condition separately. The results revealed significant correlations at the short SOA for both primary and other associates. The correlations at the long SOA were significantly smaller and only reached significance when z-transformed response times were used. Furthermore, this pattern remained essentially the same when only asymmetric forward associates (e.g., panda-bear) were considered, suggesting that the cross-task stability at the short SOA was not merely caused by retrospective processes such as semantic matching. Instead, these findings provide evidence for a rapidly operating, item-based, relational characteristic such as spreading activation.

The present research examines the nature of the different processes that have been proposed to underlie semantic priming. Specifically, it has been argued that priming arises as a result of automatic target activation and/or the use of strategies like prospective expectancy generation and retrospective semantic matching. This article investigates the extent that these processes rely on cognitive resources by experimentally manipulating working memory load. To disentangle prospective and retrospective processes, prime-target pairs were selected such that they were symmetrically associated (e.g., answer-question; SYM) or asymmetrically associated in either the forward direction (e.g., panda-bear; FA) or the backward direction (e.g., ball-catch; BA). The results showed that priming for FA pairs completely evaporated under a high working memory load, but that it remained stable for BA and SYM pairs. This was taken to mean that prospective processes, which are assumed to cause FA priming, require cognitive resources, whereas retrospective processes, which lead to BA priming, are relatively effortless. ispartof: Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory and Cognition vol:41 issue:3 pages:911-920 ispartof: location:United States status: published

It has been intensely debated whether visual stimuli are processed to the point of semantic analysis in the absence of awareness. In the present study, we measured the extent to which the meaning of a stimulus was registered using the N400 component of human event-related potentials (ERPs), a highly sensitive index of the semantic mismatch between a stimulus and the context in which it is presented. Observers judged the semantic relatedness of a context and target word while ERPs were recorded under continuous flash suppression (Experiment 1 and 2) and binocular rivalry (Experiment 3). Finally, we parametrically manipulated the visibility of the target word by increasing the contrast between the target word and the suppressive stimulus presented to the other eye (Experiment 4). We found that the amplitude of the N400 was attenuated with increasing suppression depth and was absent whenever the observers could not discriminate the meaning of suppressed words. We discuss these findings in the context of single-process models of consciousness which can account for a large body of empirical evidence obtained from visual masking, attentional manipulations and, now, interocular suppression paradigms.

Particle filters are often used for tracking objects within a scene. As the prediction model of a particle filter is often implemented using basic movement predictions such as random walk, constant velocity or acceleration, these models will usually be incorrect. Therefore, this paper proposes a new approach, based on a Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) tracking method which provides an object specific motion model. This model is used to construct a proposal distribution of the prediction model which predicts new states, increasing the robustness of the particle filter. Results confirm an increase in accuracy compared to state-of-the-art methods.