Redefine or justify? Comments on the alpha debate

Psychology Exceptionalism and the Multiple Discovery of the Replication Crisis

This article outlines what we call the “narrative of psychology exceptionalism” in commentaries on the replication crisis: many thoughtful commentaries link the current crisis to the specificity of psychology’s history, methods, and subject matter, but explorations of the similarities between psychology and other fields are comparatively thin. Historical analyses of the replication crisis in psychology further contribute to this exceptionalism by creating a genealogy of events and personalities that shares little in common with other fields. We aim to rebalance this narrative by examining the emergence and evolution of replication discussions in psychology alongside their emergence and evolution in biomedicine. Through a mixed-methods analysis of commentaries on replication in psychology and the biomedical sciences, we find that these conversations have, from the early years of the crisis, shared a common core that centers on concerns about the effectiveness of traditional peer review, the need for greater transparency in methods and data, and the perverse incentive structure of academia. Drawing on Robert Merton’s framework for analyzing multiple discovery in science, we argue that the nearly simultaneous emergence of this narrative across fields suggests that there are shared historical, cultural, or institutional factors driving disillusionment with established scientific practices.

Apophenia and anesthesia: how we sometimes change our practice prematurely

Human beings are predisposed to identifying false patterns in statistical noise, a likely survival advantage during our evolutionary development. Moreover, humans seem to prefer "positive" results over "negative" ones. These two cognitive features lay a framework for premature adoption of falsely positive studies. Added to this predisposition is the tendency of journals to "overbid" for exciting or newsworthy manuscripts, incentives in both the academic and publishing industries that value change over truth and scientific rigour, and a growing dependence on complex statistical techniques that some reviewers do not understand. The purpose of this article is to describe the underlying causes of premature adoption and provide recommendations that may improve the quality of published science.

Shifting the focus away from binary thinking of statistical significance and towards education for key stakeholders: revisiting the debate on whether it's time to de-emphasize or get rid of statistical significance

There has been a long-standing controversy among scientists regarding the appropriate use of P-values and statistical significance in clinical research. This debate has resurfaced through recent calls to modify the threshold of P-value required to declare significance, or to retire statistical significance entirely. In this article, we revisit the issue by discussing: i) the connection between statistical thinking and evidence-based practice; ii) some history of statistical significance and P-values; iii) some practical challenges with statistical significance or P-value thresholds in clinical research; iv) the on-going debate on what to do with statistical significance; v) suggestions to shift the focus away from binary thinking of statistical significance and towards education for key stakeholders on research essentials including statistical thinking, critical thinking, good reporting, basic clinical research concepts and methods, and more. We then conclude with remarks and illustrations of the potential deleterious public health consequences of poor methods including selective choice of analysis approach and misguided reliance on binary use of P-values to report and interpret scientific findings.

#EEGManyLabs: Investigating the replicability of influential EEG experiments

There is growing awareness across the neuroscience community that the replicability of findings about the relationship between brain activity and cognitive phenomena can be improved by conducting studies with high statistical power that adhere to well-defined and standardised analysis pipelines. Inspired by recent efforts from the psychological sciences, and with the desire to examine some of the foundational findings using electroencephalography (EEG), we have launched #EEGManyLabs, a large-scale international collaborative replication effort. Since its discovery in the early 20th century, EEG has had a profound influence on our understanding of human cognition, but there is limited evidence on the replicability of some of the most highly cited discoveries. After a systematic search and selection process, we have identified 27 of the most influential and continually cited studies in the field. We plan to directly test the replicability of key findings from 20 of these studies in teams of at least three independent laboratories. The design and protocol of each replication effort will be submitted as a Registered Report and peer-reviewed prior to data collection. Prediction markets, open to all EEG researchers, will be used as a forecasting tool to examine which findings the community expects to replicate. This project will update our confidence in some of the most influential EEG findings and generate a large open access database that can be used to inform future research practices. Finally, through this international effort, we hope to create a cultural shift towards inclusive, high-powered multi-laboratory collaborations.