A Template for Preregistration of Quantitative Research in Psychology: Report of the Joint Psychological Societies Preregistration Task Force

Recent years have seen dramatic changes in research practices in psychological science. In particular, preregistration of study plans before conducting a study has been identified as an important tool to help increase the transparency of science and to improve the robustness of psychological research findings. This article presents the Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template produced by a Joint Psychological Societies Preregistration Task Force consisting of the American Psychological Association (APA), the British Psychological Society (BPS), and the German Psychological Society (DGPs), supported by the Center for Open Science (COS) and the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID). The goal of the Task Force was to provide the psychological community with a consensus template for the preregistration of quantitative research in psychology, one with wide coverage and the ability, if necessary, to adapt to specific journals, disciplines, and researcher needs. This article covers the structure and use of the PRP-QUANT template, while outlining and discussing the benefits of its use for researchers, authors, funders, and other relevant stakeholders. We hope that by introducing this template and by demonstrating the support of preregistration by major academic psychological societies, we will facilitate an increase in preregistration practices and also the further advancement of transparency and knowledge-sharing in the psychological sciences

Estimating health-adjusted life expectancy conditional on risk factors: results for smoking and obesity

BACKGROUND: Smoking and obesity are risk factors causing a large burden of disease. To help formulate and prioritize among smoking and obesity prevention activities, estimations of health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) for cohorts that differ solely in their lifestyle (e.g. smoking vs. non smoking) can provide valuable information. Furthermore, in combination with estimates of life expectancy (LE), it can be tested whether prevention of obesity and smoking results in compression of morbidity. METHODS: Using a dynamic population model that calculates the incidence of chronic disease conditional on epidemiological risk factors, we estimated LE and HALE at age 20 for a cohort of smokers with a normal weight (BMI < 25), a cohort of non-smoking obese people (BMI>30) and a cohort of 'healthy living' people (i.e. non smoking with a BMI < 25). Health state valuations for the different cohorts were calculated using the estimated disease prevalence rates in combination with data from the Dutch Burden of Disease study. Health state valuations are multiplied with life years to estimate HALE. Absolute compression of morbidity is defined as a reduction in unhealthy life expectancy (LE-HALE) and relative compression as a reduction in the proportion of life lived in good health (LE-HALE)/LE. RESULTS: Estimates of HALE are highest for a 'healthy living' cohort (54.8 years for men and 55.4 years for women at age 20). Differences in HALE compared to 'healthy living' men at age 20 are 7.8 and 4.6 for respectively smoking and obese men. Differences in HALE compared to 'healthy living' women at age 20 are 6.0 and 4.5 for respectively smoking and obese women. Unhealthy life expectancy is about equal for all cohorts, meaning that successful prevention would not result in absolute compression of morbidity. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate that although estimates of LE and HALE are sensitive to changes in disease epidemiology, differences in LE and HALE between the different cohorts are fairly robust. In most cases, elimination of smoking or obesity does not result in absolute compression of morbidity but slightly increases the part of life lived in good health. CONCLUSION: Differences in HALE between smoking, obese and 'healthy living' cohorts are substantial and similar to differences in LE. However, our results do not indicate that substantial compression of morbidity is to be expected as a result of successful smoking or obesity prevention

Electrophysiological dynamics of Chinese phonology during visual word recognition in Chinese-English bilinguals

Silent word reading leads to the activation of orthographic (spelling), meaning, as well as phonological (sound) information. For bilinguals, native language information can also be activated automatically when they read words in their second language. For example, when Chinese-English bilinguals read words in their second language (English), the phonology of the Chinese translations is automatically activated. Chinese phonology, however, consists of consonants and vowels (segmental) and tonal information. To what extent these two aspects of Chinese phonology are activated is yet unclear. Here, we used behavioural measures, event-related potentials and oscillatory EEG to investigate Chinese segmental and tonal activation during word recognition. Evidence of Chinese segmental activation was found when bilinguals read English words (faster responses, reduced N400, gamma-band power reduction) and when they read Chinese words (increased LPC, gamma-band power reduction). In contrast, evidence for Chinese tonal activation was only found when bilinguals read Chinese words (gamma-band power increase). Together, our converging behavioural and electrophysiological evidence indicates that Chinese segmental information is activated during English word reading, whereas both segmental and tonal information are activated during Chinese word reading. Importantly, gamma-band oscillations are modulated differently by tonal and segmental activation, suggesting independent processing of Chinese tones and segments

The Role of Gamma-Band Activity in the Representation of Faces: Reduced Activity in the Fusiform Face Area in Congenital Prosopagnosia

Congenital prosopagnosia (CP) describes an impairment in face processing that is presumably present from birth. The neuronal correlates of this dysfunction are still under debate. In the current paper, we investigate high-frequent oscillatory activity in response to faces in persons with CP. Such neuronal activity is thought to reflect higher-level representations for faces.Source localization of induced Gamma-Band Responses (iGBR) measured by magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to establish the origin of oscillatory activity in response to famous and unknown faces which were presented in upright and inverted orientation. Persons suffering from congenital prosopagnosia (CP) were compared to matched controls.Corroborating earlier research, both groups revealed amplified iGBR in response to upright compared to inverted faces predominately in a time interval between 170 and 330 ms and in a frequency range from 50-100 Hz. Oscillatory activity upon known faces was smaller in comparison to unknown faces, suggesting a "sharpening" effect reflecting more efficient processing for familiar stimuli. These effects were seen in a wide cortical network encompassing temporal and parietal areas involved in the disambiguation of homogenous stimuli such as faces, and in the retrieval of semantic information. Importantly, participants suffering from CP displayed a strongly reduced iGBR in the left fusiform area compared to control participants.In sum, these data stress the crucial role of oscillatory activity for face representation and demonstrate the involvement of a distributed occipito-temporo-parietal network in generating iGBR. This study also provides the first evidence that persons suffering from an agnosia actually display reduced gamma band activity. Finally, the results argue strongly against the view that oscillatory activity is a mere epiphenomenon brought fourth by rapid eye-movements (micro saccades)

Representation of the verb's argument-structure in the human brain

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A verb's argument structure defines the number and relationships of participants needed for a complete event. One-argument (intransitive) verbs require only a subject to make a complete sentence, while two- and three-argument verbs (transitives and ditransitives) normally take direct and indirect objects. Cortical responses to verbs embedded into sentences (correct or with syntactic violations) indicate the processing of the verb's argument structure in the human brain. The two experiments of the present study examined whether and how this processing is reflected in distinct spatio-temporal cortical response patterns to isolated verbs and/or verbs presented in minimal context.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The magnetoencephalogram was recorded while 22 native German-speaking adults saw 130 German verbs, presented one at a time for 150 ms each in experiment 1. Verb-evoked electromagnetic responses at 250 – 300 ms after stimulus onset, analyzed in source space, were higher in the left middle temporal gyrus for verbs that take only one argument, relative to two- and three-argument verbs. In experiment 2, the same verbs (presented in different order) were preceded by a proper name specifying the subject of the verb. This produced additional activation between 350 and 450 ms in or near the left inferior frontal gyrus, activity being larger and peaking earlier for one-argument verbs that required no further arguments to form a complete sentence.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Localization of sources of activity suggests that the activation in temporal and frontal regions varies with the degree by which representations of an event as a part of the verbs' semantics are completed during parsing.</p

European research priorities for intracerebral haemorrhage

Over 2 million people are affected by intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) worldwide every year, one third of them dying within 1 month, and many survivors being left with permanent disability. Unlike most other stroke types, the incidence, morbidity and mortality of ICH have not declined over time. No standardised diagnostic workup for the detection of the various underlying causes of ICH currently exists, and the evidence for medical or surgical therapeutic interventions remains limited. A dedicated European research programme for ICH is needed to identify ways to reduce the burden of ICH-related death and disability. The European Research Network on Intracerebral Haemorrhage EURONICH is a multidisciplinary academic research collaboration that has been established to define current research priorities and to conduct large clinical studies on all aspects of ICH. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

ERP evidence for different strategies in the processing of case markers in native speakers and non-native learners

BACKGROUND: The present experiments were designed to test how the linguistic feature of case is processed in Japanese by native and non-native listeners. We used a miniature version of Japanese as a model to compare sentence comprehension mechanisms in native speakers and non-native learners who had received training until they had mastered the system. In the first experiment we auditorily presented native Japanese speakers with sentences containing incorrect double nominatives and incorrect double accusatives, and with correct sentences. In the second experiment we tested trained non-natives with the same material. Based on previous research in German we expected an N400-P600 biphasic ERP response with specific modulations depending on the violated case and whether the listeners were native or non-native. RESULTS: For native Japanese participants the general ERP response to the case violations was an N400-P600 pattern. Double accusatives led to an additional enhancement of the P600 amplitude. For the learners a native-like P600 was present for double accusatives and for double nominatives. The additional negativity, however, was present in learners only for double nominative violations, and it was characterized by a different topographical distribution. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that native listeners use case markers for thematic as well as syntactic structure building during incremental sentence interpretation. The modulation of the P600 component for double accusatives possibly reflects case specific syntactic restrictions in Japanese. For adult language learners later processes, as reflected in the P600, seem to be more native-like compared to earlier processes. The anterior distribution of the negativity and its selective emergence for canonical sentences were taken to suggest that the non-native learners resorted to a rather formal processing strategy whereby they relied to a large degree on the phonologically salient nominative case marker

A Common Left Occipito-Temporal Dysfunction in Developmental Dyslexia and Acquired Letter-By-Letter Reading?

We used fMRI to examine functional brain abnormalities of German-speaking dyslexics who suffer from slow effortful reading but not from a reading accuracy problem. Similar to acquired cases of letter-by-letter reading, the developmental cases exhibited an abnormal strong effect of length (i.e., number of letters) on response time for words and pseudowords.Corresponding to lesions of left occipito-temporal (OT) regions in acquired cases, we found a dysfunction of this region in our developmental cases who failed to exhibit responsiveness of left OT regions to the length of words and pseudowords. This abnormality in the left OT cortex was accompanied by absent responsiveness to increased sublexical reading demands in phonological inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) regions. Interestingly, there was no abnormality in the left superior temporal cortex which--corresponding to the onological deficit explanation--is considered to be the prime locus of the reading difficulties of developmental dyslexia cases.The present functional imaging results suggest that developmental dyslexia similar to acquired letter-by-letter reading is due to a primary dysfunction of left OT regions

Activation of the Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus in the First 200 ms of Reading: Evidence from Magnetoencephalography (MEG)

BACKGROUND: It is well established that the left inferior frontal gyrus plays a key role in the cerebral cortical network that supports reading and visual word recognition. Less clear is when in time this contribution begins. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG), which has both good spatial and excellent temporal resolution, to address this question. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: MEG data were recorded during a passive viewing paradigm, chosen to emphasize the stimulus-driven component of the cortical response, in which right-handed participants were presented words, consonant strings, and unfamiliar faces to central vision. Time-frequency analyses showed a left-lateralized inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis) response to words between 100-250 ms in the beta frequency band that was significantly stronger than the response to consonant strings or faces. The left inferior frontal gyrus response to words peaked at approximately 130 ms. This response was significantly later in time than the left middle occipital gyrus, which peaked at approximately 115 ms, but not significantly different from the peak response in the left mid fusiform gyrus, which peaked at approximately 140 ms, at a location coincident with the fMRI-defined visual word form area (VWFA). Significant responses were also detected to words in other parts of the reading network, including the anterior middle temporal gyrus, the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, the angular and supramarginal gyri, and the left superior temporal gyrus. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest very early interactions between the vision and language domains during visual word recognition, with speech motor areas being activated at the same time as the orthographic word-form is being resolved within the fusiform gyrus. This challenges the conventional view of a temporally serial processing sequence for visual word recognition in which letter forms are initially decoded, interact with their phonological and semantic representations, and only then gain access to a speech code