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.].

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.

Robustness of the aging effect of smiling against vertical facial orientation

Background: Previous studies have shown that the association between smiling and youth is a misconception; smiling faces have been estimated to be older than neutral faces. Previous studies have indicated that this aging effect of smiling (AES) is due to eye wrinkles caused by the facial action of smiling. However, whether holistic processing for facial expressions is involved in AES has not been investigated. The present study aimed to clarify these issues.

Methods: Participants were recruited to participate in an online experiment that had a 3 (facial expression: smiling/neutral/surprised) × 2 (facial orientation: upright/inverted) mixed design. Participants were presented with an upright or inverted face for each expression (neutral, smiling, and surprised) and were asked to estimate the individual’s age.

Results: In total, 104 participants were included in the analysis. The results show that smiling faces were estimated to be older than neutral faces, whereas there was no significant difference between upright and inverted faces.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that AES is not dependent on holistic processing.

The clone devaluation effect: does duplication of local facial features matter?

Objective

The clone devaluation is a phenomenon reported by the latest paper in which eeriness is evoked when people observe individuals with the same face (clone faces) compared to those with different faces. There are two possibilities that explain the clone devaluation effect. One is that the same facial features that clone faces have (duplication of facial features) induce the clone devaluation effect. The other possibility is that duplication of identities between people with clone faces is important for the clone devaluation effect. We thus conducted an experiment to investigate whether the duplication of identities or of facial features induces the clone devaluation effect.

Results

Participants evaluated eeriness of scrambled clone faces and scrambled different faces using the paired comparison method. There was only a slight difference in subjective eeriness between scrambled clone faces and scrambled different faces. Therefore, this study suggests that the duplication of local facial features does not play a key role in inducing the clone devaluation effect.

The clone devaluation effect: A new uncanny phenomenon concerning facial identity

Technological advances in robotics have already produced robots that are indistinguishable from human beings. This technology is overcoming the uncanny valley, which refers to the unpleasant feelings that arise from humanoid robots that are similar in appearance to real humans to some extent. If humanoid robots with the same appearance are mass-produced and become commonplace, we may encounter circumstances in which people or human-like products have faces with the exact same appearance in the future. This leads to the following question: what impressions do clones elicit? To respond to this question, we examined what impressions images of people with the same face (clone images) induce. In the six studies we conducted, we consistently reported that clone images elicited higher eeriness than individuals with different faces; we named this new phenomenon the clone devaluation effect. We found that the clone devaluation effect reflected the perceived improbability of facial duplication. Moreover, this phenomenon was related to distinguishableness of each face, the duplication of identity, the background scene in observing clone faces, and avoidance reactions based on disgust sensitivity. These findings suggest that the clone devaluation effect is a product of multiple processes related to memory, emotion, and face recognition systems.

Warning 'Don't spread' versus 'Don't be a spreader' to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is threatening not only health but also life worldwide. It is important to encourage citizens to voluntarily practise infection-prevention (IP) behaviours such as social distancing and self-restraint. Previous research on social cognition suggested that emphasizing self-identity is key to changing a person's behaviour. The present study investigated whether reminders that highlight self-identity would be effective in changing intention and behaviour related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and hypothesized that those who read reminders highlighting self-identity (Don't be a spreader) would change IP intention and behaviour better than those who read 'Don't spread' or no reminder. We conducted a two-wave survey of the same participants with a one-week interval, during which we assigned one of three reminder conditions to the participants: 'Don't spread' (spreading condition), 'Don't be a spreader' (spreader condition) and no reminder (control condition). Participants marked their responses to IP intentions and actual behaviours each week based on the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare guidelines. While the results did not show significant differences between the conditions, the post hoc analyses showed significant equivalence in either IP intentions or behavioural scores. We discussed the results from the perspective of the effect size, ceiling effects and ways of manipulation checks as future methods with more effective persuasive messaging. Following in-principle acceptance, the approved Stage 1 version of this manuscript was pre-registered on the OSF at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KZ5Y4. This pre-registration was performed prior to data collection and analysis.

Task Difficulty Modulates the Disrupting Effects of Oral Respiration on Visual Search Performance

Previous research has suggested that oral respiration may disturb cognitive function and health. The present study investigated whether oral respiration negatively affects visual attentional processing during a visual search task. Participants performed a visual search task in the following three breathing conditions: wearing a nasal plug, wearing surgical tape over their mouths, or no modification (oral vs. nasal vs. control). The participants searched for a target stimulus within different set sizes of distractors in three search conditions (orientation vs colour vs conjunction). Experiment 1 did not show any effect due to respiration. Experiment 2 rigorously manipulated the search efficiency and found that participants required more time to find a poorly discriminable target during oral breathing compared with other breathing styles, which was due to the heightened intercept under this condition. Because the intercept is an index of pre-search sensory processing or motor response in visual search, such cognitive processing was likely disrupted by oral respiration. These results suggest that oral respiration and attentional processing during inefficient visual search share a common cognitive resource.

Does weight lifting improve visual acuity? A replication of Gonzalo-Fonrodona and Porras (2013)

Objective

A physical effort such as lifting up a weight affects our perception and cognition. A previous study reported in two experiments that weight lifting improves visual acuity. In the previous study, participants’ visual acuity was higher while lifting weights than while resting. Moreover, via a case study, that study further showed that the heavier the weight, the better the visual acuity. These experiments, although interesting, lacked methodological details and thorough statistical analyses. We thus conducted experiments similar to these two previous ones that mitigated these issues.

Results

Although our results of Experiment 1 echoed those of the previous study, the results of Experiment 2 did not support the latter case report. Thus, our results suggest that the bodily experience of weights improves visual acuity, but a gradual increase in weight does not seem to lead to a gradual increase in visual acuity.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-017-2699-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.