Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness affecting ~1 in 100 people (Ellison et al., 2018), characterised by emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, a distorted sense of self, and a long-term pattern of unstable interpersonal relationships. Among this heterogenous range of symptoms is difficulty in the cognitive dimension of empathy, in particular understanding the perspectives of others, which in turn has been suggested to rely on the mirror neuron system, both in the motor and somatosensory domains. The integrity of the mirror system has therefore been a focus for understanding the possible causes or consequences of the disorder, with preliminary studies pointing to hypoactivity of neuronal areas associated with the mirror system in BPD (Mier et al., 2013).

 

In the current study, Zazio et al. (2023) will use crossmodal paired associative stimulation (cm-PAS) in which an image of a hand being touched is repeatedly paired with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) to test the hypothesis that BPD is associated with a specific deficit in the tactile mirror system. In healthy controls, the close temporal coupling (20ms) between the visual depiction of tactile stimulation and TMS of S1 is expected boost tactile acuity and elevate the performance cost of incongruence in a task that manipulates visuo-tactile spatial congruity (VTSC) – effects that are thought to reflect the fidelity of the tactile mirror system.

 

In BPD patients, however, the authors make the crucial prediction that impairment of the tactile mirror system (if present) will lead to a reduced (or even non-existent) effect of cm-PAS on tactile acuity and VTSC task performance compared to healthy controls. To help ensure a severe test of this hypothesis, the design includes a variety of controls, including an attention check, control cm-PAS in which the inter-stimulus interval is increased to 100ms to break the close temporal coupling between visual stimulation and TMS, and a positive control to confirm that active cm-PAS (compared to control cm-PAS) produces the expected boost in tactile acuity in healthy controls.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over three rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/sqnwd
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

References
 

1. Ellison, W. D., Rosenstein, L. K., Morgan, T. A., & Zimmerman, M. (2018). Community and clinical epidemiology of borderline personality disorder. Psychiatric Clinics, 41, 561-573. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2018.07.008

2. Mier, D., Lis, S., Esslinger, C., Sauer, C., Hagenhoff, M., Ulferts, J., Gallhofer, B. & Kirsch, P. (2013). Neuronal correlates of social cognition in borderline personality disorder. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8, 531-537. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nss028

 

2. Zazio, A., Guidali, G., Rossi, R., Bolognini, N. & Bortoletto, A. (2023). Cortical plasticity of the tactile mirror system in borderline personality disorder, in principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/sqnwd

This study aims to examine the associations between personality traits, using the big-5 personality model (Costa & McCrae, 1992), and compliance with pandemic measures (e.g. handwashing), and perceived risk of the pandemic to the individual, in a representative sample of the adult Norwegian population.

 

Several previous studies have examined associations between personality and adherence to medical advice using measures administered at the same point in time the during COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. Götz et al., 2021), however the dataset the current investigators plan to use assessed personality one year prior to the pandemic (May/June 2019) and the risk and compliance measures four months into the pandemic (August/September 2020). 
 
Here, Sætrevik et al. (2024) make a number of hypotheses, including that conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and neuroticism will be positively associated with compliance; extraversion will be negatively associated with compliance; extraversion and openness will be negatively associated with perceived risk; and finally, neuroticism will be positively associated with perceived risk. They plan to test their hypotheses using linear regression analyses.
 
Importantly, given the topic, the data for this study already exists and some response distributions of the compliance and risk measures have been examined. However, the authors have yet to link the data on personality to the data on compliance and risk, which is the focus of their hypotheses.  
 
The findings from this study will help us to understand the personality characteristics associated with infection control measures and individual risk perceptions of viral illnesses during a pandemic. 
 
The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two expert reviewers in two rounds of in-depth review. Following responses from the authors, the recommender determined that Stage 1 criteria were met and awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 1. At least some of the data/evidence that will be used to the answer the research question has been accessed and observed by the authors, including key variables, but the authors certify that they have not yet performed any of their preregistered analyses, and in addition they have taken stringent steps to reduce the risk of bias.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Personality Science
  
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open

 

1. Costa, P. T., and McCrae, R. R. (1992). The five-factor model of personality and its relevance to personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 6, 343–359. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.1992.6.4.343
 
2. Götz, F. M., Gvirtz, A., Galinsky, A. D., and Jachimowicz, J. M. (2021). How personality and policy predict pandemic behavior: Understanding sheltering-in-place in 55 countries at the onset of COVID-19. The American psychologist, 76, 39–49. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000740

 

3. Sætrevik, B., Erevik, E. K., and Bjørkheim, S. B. (2024). Personality traits predict perception of pandemic risk and compliance with infection control measures. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/p5sjb

Subjective tinnitus is a common disorder in which people experience a persistent sound in the absence of any external source. The underlying causes of tinnitus are debated – although the condition is strongly associated with hearing loss resulting from auditory damage, much remains to be understood about the neural processes that give rise to the phantom perception. Various classes of neurophysiological theories have been proposed, including the “altered gain” model – in which neurons in the auditory pathway increase their responsiveness to compensate for reduced auditory input following hearing loss – and the “noise cancellation” model –  in which disrupted feedback connections from limbic regions are unable to tune out phantom signals. Although these theories account for much observed data, they have not been conclusively supported, and their ability to explain tinnitus is limited by the fact that hearing loss and tinnitus can arise independently and at different times.

 

In the current study, Reisinger et al. (2023) will test an emerging alternative theory based on a Bayesian predictive-coding framework (Sedley et al., 2016) in which the alteration of perceptual priors leads the auditory system to expect a sound that, if functioning normally, it should not expect. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a sample of tinnitus patients (and carefully-matched controls for age, gender, and level of hearing loss), they will ask whether tinnitus is associated with anticipatory brain activation, tuned to the carrier-frequency of an expected auditory stimulus. Specifically, the authors predict that if the predictive-coding framework is correct then individuals with tinnitus should show different regularity-dependent pre-activations of carrier- frequency-specific information compared to the control group, while tone carrier-frequencies should be processed normally in tinnitus patients. They also predict that any such pre-activations should not be related to levels of reported subjective tinnitus distress, as measured with the short version of the Tinnitus Questionnaire (mini-TQ).

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some data/evidence that will be used to the answer the research question has been previously accessed by the authors (e.g. downloaded or otherwise received), but the authors certify that they have not yet observed ANY part of the data/evidence.

 

 

• Brain and Neuroscience Advances
• Cortex
• F1000Research
• In&Vertebrates
• NeuroImage: Reports
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research and Practice
• Royal Society Open Science

 

 

Reisinger, L., Demarchi, G., Rösch, , S., Trinka, E., Obleser, L., & Weisz, N.  (2023). Registered Report: Are anticipatory predictions enhanced in tinnitus and independent of hearing loss? In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/6gvpy

 

Sedley, W., Friston, K. J., Gander, P. E., Kumar, S., & Griffiths, T. D. (2016). An integrative tinnitus model based on sensory precision. Trends in Neurosciences, 39, 799-812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2016.10.004

For centuries, the relationship between creativity and mental health has been a subject of fascination, propelled by the impression that many of the most famous artists in history likely suffered from mood disorders or other mental illnesses. However, with the advent of psychological science – including more precise and diagnostic clinical measures – the empirical evidence for an association between creativity and depressive symptoms has been mixed, with some studies suggesting a positive relationship and others showing either no effect or indicating that the link, if there is one, may be driven by other personality characteristics (Verhaeghen et al., 2005).

 

In the current study, Lam and Saunders will use an online design in 200 participants to ask whether creativity is associated with higher depressive traits, and further, whether that relationship depends on two additional variables that could explain an observed positive correlation: self-reflective rumination (repetitive thoughts that maintain a negative mood state) and the frequency with which individuals engage in reappraisal (a regulation strategy that involves reinterpreting an event or situation to diminish its negative impact). If justified by the main confirmatory findings, the authors will also explore the moderating role of gender and how any observed associations are reflected in more fine-grained measures of creativity. The results promise to shed light on not only the basic question of whether creativity is related to depressive traits, but the extent to which that association depends on related determinants of mental health.

 

Following two rounds of in-depth review, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).  

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/yub7n
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA. 
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

References
 

1. Verhaeghen, P., Joormann, J., & Khan, R. (2005). Why we sing the blues: The relation between self-reflective rumination, mood, and creativity. Emotion, 5(2), 226-232. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.5.2.226

 

2. Lam, C. Y. & Saunders, J. A. (2022). Relationship between creativity and depression: the role of reappraisal and rumination, in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/yub7n

What determines whether groups of people can come up with ideas that are both original and useful? Since the 1960s, this question has been intensively studied with the help of more or less structured group creativity activities such as brainstorming or creative problem solving, with subsequent rating of the generated ideas.

In this line of research, personal factors—such as personality traits, and other interindividual differences in emotion and cognition—have received substantial attention as potential correlates of creative outcomes of group activities. This has spawned a sprawling literature that, to date, has not yet been synthesized. Thus, empirical findings in this literature, which are also sometimes contradictory, have not yet been well-integrated.

In the present study, Fillon et al. (2022) conducted the first meta-analysis of correlations between personal factors and group creativity outcomes. The authors searched and synthesized the existing published literature according to predetermined criteria to (1) assess the overall relationship between a broad list of personal factors and creativity outcomes in group settings and (2) explore potential moderators of these relationships. 

In total, 11 studies could be included in the meta-analysis. They provided weak support for a positive correlation between self-efficacy and the three investigated group creative outcomes, number of ideas, originality of ideas, and usefulness of ideas. With respect to moderators, many of the planned analyses could not be conducted due to the low number of studies. The only finding that arose was weak evidence for the idea that time constraint moderates associations: relationships between personal factors and group creativity outcomes were slightly stronger for tasks limited to 20 minutes rather than 10 minutes. Statistical power overall was low across studies.

The authors conclude their meta-analysis with the observation that the available data on the topic are very limited. They suggest that to improve our knowledge of the topic, future studies should adhere to standardized creativity methods and protocols and implement expert ratings of creativity. They also call for increasing the availability of raw data in this field of study to improve the accumulation of knowledge about links between personal factors and the creative performance of groups.

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review provided by the recommender and Chris Chambers, as the original reviewers were no longer available. Based on additional changes to the manuscript, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria and awarded a positive recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/nybg6
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some data/evidence that was used to answer the research question had been previously accessed by the authors (e.g. downloaded or otherwise received), but the authors certified that had not yet observed ANY part of the data/evidence prior to IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals: