Participant Nonnaiveté and the reproducibility of cognitive psychology

Psychon Bull Rev. 2018 Oct;25(5):1968-1972. doi: 10.3758/s13423-017-1348-y.

Abstract

Many argue that there is a reproducibility crisis in psychology. We investigated nine well-known effects from the cognitive psychology literature-three each from the domains of perception/action, memory, and language, respectively-and found that they are highly reproducible. Not only can they be reproduced in online environments, but they also can be reproduced with nonnaïve participants with no reduction of effect size. Apparently, some cognitive tasks are so constraining that they encapsulate behavior from external influences, such as testing situation and prior recent experience with the experiment to yield highly robust effects.

Keywords: Language; Memory; Perception; Replication; Reproducibility.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Cognitive Science / standards*
  • Executive Function / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Inhibition, Psychological*
  • Language*
  • Male
  • Memory / physiology*
  • Perception / physiology*
  • Psychology / standards*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Reproducibility of Results*
  • Young Adult