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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: To accommodate reviewer and recommender holiday schedules, we will be closed to ALL submissions from 1st Jul - 1st Sep. During this time, reviewers can submit reviews and recommenders can issue decisions, but no new or revised submissions can be made by authors.
The one exception to this rule is that authors using the scheduled track who submit their initial Stage 1 snapshot prior to 1st Jul can choose a date within the shutdown period to submit their full Stage 1 manuscript.
We recommend that authors submit at least 1-2 weeks prior to commencement of the shutdown period to enable time to make any required revisions prior to in-depth review.
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Latest recommendations
| Id | Title * | Authors * | Abstract * | Picture | Thematic fields * | Recommender▲ | Reviewers | Submission date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
26 Nov 2024
STAGE 1
The Importance of Long- and Short-Acting Pharmacological Treatment Options for Time Use and Quality of Life in Individuals with Opioid Use Disorder: An Observational, Cross-Sectional, Survey-Based StudyExamining distinct patterns of time-use and their associations with quality of life in individuals receiving treatment for opioid use disorderRecommended by Andrew Jones based on reviews by Chris Chambers, Cathy Montgomery and 1 anonymous reviewerDrug use is a time-consuming endeavour, particularly for opioids, whereby substantial time is required to seek out, prepare and consume drugs. This prioritization of drug use reduces the time that is available for substance-free alternatives that contribute positively to quality of life, such as socialization, education, employment, physical activity and self-care (Acuff et al., 2019). Given the time commitments, daily supervised treatment of opioid use disorder has poor adherence (Strang et al., 2020). As such, there is an interest in long-acting injectable medications, which can overcome these adherence issues (Saunders et al 2020). However, little is known about how patients on long-acting medications for opioid use disorder adapt to the increased free-time they have, and where this has downstream impacts on their well-being, quality of life and experience of stigma.
In the current study, Trøstheim and colleagues plan to conduct an observational investigation of >500 individuals from Norway with opioid use disorder who were receiving pharmacological treatment. Their primary hypothesis is that individuals with opioid use disorder will exhibit distinct time use profiles, which will be examined using latent profile analysis to identify time use patterns based on 17 measured time use variables e.g. ‘How many days in the past week have you done paid work, voluntary work, or community service’. Secondary analyses will test the associations between medication type, time use (based on the latent profile analysis), well-being, stigma and life-satisfaction. Findings from this study will provide a greater understanding of how long-acting medications for opioid use disorder impact free-time and quality of life. The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review by two reviewers and the recommender. Following a response and revision, 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/vbpjg
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. Acuff, S. F., Dennhardt, A. A., Correia, C. J., & Murphy, J. G. (2019). Measurement of substance-free reinforcement in addiction: A systematic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 70, 79-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2019.04.003 2. Saunders, E. C., Moore, S. K., Walsh, O., Metcalf, S. A., Budney, A. J., Scherer, E., & Marsch, L. A. (2020). Perceptions and preferences for long-acting injectable and implantable medications in comparison to short-acting medications for opioid use disorders. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 111, 54-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2020.01.009
3. Strang, J., Volkow, N. D., Degenhardt, L., Hickman, M., Johnson, K., Koob, G. F., ... & Walsh, S. L. (2020). Opioid use disorder. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 6, 3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-019-0137-5
4. Trøstheim, M., Leknes, S., Solli, K. K., Carlyle, M., Ernst, G., & Eikemo, M. (2024). The Importance of Long- and Short-Acting Pharmacological Treatment Options for Time Use and Quality of Life in Individuals with Opioid Use Disorder: An Observational, Cross-Sectional, Survey-Based Study. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/vbpjg
| The Importance of Long- and Short-Acting Pharmacological Treatment Options for Time Use and Quality of Life in Individuals with Opioid Use Disorder: An Observational, Cross-Sectional, Survey-Based Study | Martin Trøstheim, Siri Leknes, Kristin K. Solli, Molly Carlyle, Gernot Ernst, Marie Eikemo | <p><strong>Background. </strong>Pharmacological treatment for opioid use disorder with new, long-acting medications (e.g., injectable and implantable buprenorphine) frees up a considerable amount of patients’ time otherwise spent seeking illicit o... | Medical Sciences, Social sciences | Andrew Jones | Chris Chambers, Cathy Montgomery | 2024-06-28 11:11:22 | ||
Action interpretation determines the effects of go/no-go and approach/avoidance actions on food choiceDoes interpretation of actions as either avoid or inhibit influence choice behaviour for candy?Recommended by Andrew Jones based on reviews by Alexander MacLellan and Katrijn HoubenExperimental research demonstrates that executing or inhibiting motor responses (or approaching / avoiding) towards a stimulus can alter the valuation of the stimulus (Yang et al., 2022). There are competing theories as to the proposed mechanisms of value change, such as increased response conflict or prediction errors (Houben & Aulbach, 2023). However, research has mostly examined response execution/inhibition and approach/avoidance in isolation and the few studies that have examined these together have focused on stimulus evaluation as an outcome.
In the current study Chen et al. (2025) set out to examine how action interpretations (e.g. go vs approach) can impact individuals food-choices. This is important for cognitive bias modification approaches which aim to manipulate these actions to promote behaviour change (Iannazzo et al., 2024; Veling et al., 2021), but also theoretical accounts which suggest certain motor-responses acquire valence. Here there are two groups randomised to receive instructions to either go/no-go or approach/avoid images of candy in novel training task (Chen et al., 2019).
The results of the experiment suggested that despite both groups making the same responses (pressing a space bar vs not), the framing of the response as go vs approach and no-go vs avoidance influenced subsequent food-choice (i.e. responses framed as approach increased the probability of choosing approach items over avoidance items, but not go items over no-go items). As the authors state, these findings cast doubt on theoretical models which suggest there are ‘hardwired’ links between specific go/approach responses and appetitive systems or specific no-go/avoidance responses and aversive systems. They also suggest these responses aren’t valenced, but acquire valence through interpretation of the action. These findings can also inform future studies into cognitive bias modification. The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review by two reviewers with expertise in the relevant area, who also assessed the Stage 1 manuscript. Based on the authors’ careful responses and revisions, the revised manuscript was judged to meet the Stage 2 criteria and was awarded a positive recommendation. URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/bn5xa
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that was used to answer the research question was generated until after IPA. List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
References
1. Chen, Z., Van Dessel, P., Serverius, J., Zhu, D. & Figner, B. (2025). Action interpretation determines the effects of go/no-go and approach/avoidance actions on food choice. Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6xhw4_v2
2. Chen, Z., & Van Dessel, P. (2024). Action Interpretation Determines the Effects of Go/No-Go and Approach/Avoidance Actions on Stimulus Evaluation. Open Mind, 8, 898–923. https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00151
3. Houben, K. and Aulbach, M. (2023). Is there a difference between stopping and avoiding? A review of the mechanisms underlying Go/No-Go and Approach-Avoidance training for food choice. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 49, 101245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101245
4. Iannazzo, L. H., Hayden, M. J., Lawrence, N. S., Kakoschke, N., Hughes, L. K., Van Egmond, K., … Staiger, P. K. (2024). Inhibitory control training to reduce appetitive behaviour: a meta-analytic investigation of effectiveness, potential moderators, and underlying mechanisms of change. Health Psychology Review, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2024.2410018 5. Veling, H., Verpaalen, I. A. M., Liu, H., Mosannenzadeh, F., Becker, D., & Holland, R. W. (2021). How can food choice best be trained? Approach-avoidance versus go/no-go training. Appetite, 163, 105226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105226 6. Yang, Y., Qi, L., Morys, F., Wu, Q. & Chen, H. (2022). Food-Specific Inhibition Training for Food Devaluation: A Meta-Analysis. Nutrients, 14, 1363. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14071363
| Action interpretation determines the effects of go/no-go and approach/avoidance actions on food choice | Zhang Chen, Pieter Van Dessel, Jordi Serverius, Daxun Zhu, Bernd Figner | <p>Executing go/no-go and approach/avoidance responses toward objects can increase people's choices of go over no-go items, and of approach over avoidance items. Some theoretical accounts explain these effects as the results of merely executing th... | Social sciences | Andrew Jones | 2024-11-24 11:21:55 | |||
20 Dec 2024
STAGE 1
Self-Affirmation and Prejudice Against Religious Groups: The Role of Ideological MalleabilityDoes ideological malleability moderate the effect of self-affirmation on prejudice?Recommended by Anna Elisabeth Fürtjes based on reviews by Sauro Civitillo and Pete Harris
Self-affirmation may be an effective tool to reduce prejudice and discrimination against minority groups. Its hypothesised mechanism is that prejudice is a defensive act that can be reduced by reinforcing a positive image of the self. Such a reinforced self-image is meant to weaken perceived threat to one’s social identity that may be posed by minority groups, such as Muslims in majority Christian countries.
To address mixed evidence for the effectiveness of self-affirmation across the literature, Alnajjar et al. (2024) aim to elucidate conditions under which self-affirmation may reduce prejudice and discrimination. Whether self-affirmation has the desired effect may be moderated by an individual’s internal representation of secularism. That is, as a reaction to self-affirmation, people may flexibly endorse their feelings towards secularism to either reduce prejudice, or maintain and justify it.
The authors present a study design (including a three-way mixed ANOVA) in which they plan to self-affirm French participants (N=600) with differing internal representations of secularism. Across three self-affirmation conditions (i.e., self-affirmation on a threat-related value, a threat-unrelated value, and no self-affirmation), the authors will assess the effect of self-affirmation on prejudice towards Muslims. They will also assess their participants’ attitudes towards Christians and Muslims, to distinguish whether prejudice is specifically targeted against Muslims, rather than religious groups in general. In addition, the study setup considers desirability concerns and it employs multiple manipulation checks to increase robustness of results.
With this proposed plan, the manuscript presents a persuasive rationale that it taps into the wider concept of ‘ideological malleability’ that could be the underlying mechanism to explain a moderating effect of secularism on the effectiveness of self-affirmation in this French sample. By considering nuances of public opinion towards secularism in France specifically, the authors have identified a unique opportunity to investigate ideological malleability, which can be challenging to conceive and directly measure.
The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two experts who performed in-depth peer review across multiple rounds of revisions. The authors were very responsive in editing their manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments and dedicated much effort to increasing clarity and interpretability of their power analyses. Consequently, the revised manuscript was judged to meet the Stage 1 criteria and was awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/f4wm6
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. Alnajjar, Y., Badea, C., & Sternberg, B. (2024). Self-Affirmation and Prejudice Against Religious Groups: The Role of Ideological Malleability. In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/f4wm6
| Self-Affirmation and Prejudice Against Religious Groups: The Role of Ideological Malleability | Yara Alnajjar, Constantina Badea and Béatrice Sternberg | <p><em>[IMPORTANT: Abstract, method, and results were written in past tense, to simulate what these sections will look like after data collection, but no pre-registration or data collection took place yet.]</em></p> <p> </p> <p>Self-affirma... | Social sciences | Anna Elisabeth Fürtjes | 2023-09-15 15:39:55 | |||
08 Mar 2025
STAGE 1
Noninvasive Neuromodulation of Visual Perception and Neural Connectivity in Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A Registered ReportUnderstanding the combined effects of brain stimulation and visual attention modification in body dysmorphic disorderRecommended by Anna Elisabeth Fürtjes based on reviews by Samuel Westwood and 1 anonymous reviewer
This study by Diaz-Fong et al. (2025) plans to investigate body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), an understudied psychiatric condition marked by distortions in the perception of a patients’ physical appearance. The authors build on evidence that perceptual symptoms in BDD are underpinned by attentional biases, which may relate to abnormal visual processing and neural connectivity in the dorsal visual stream (DVS; reduced activation) and the ventral visual stream (VVS; increased activation). Prior evidence suggests that activation in the DVS and the VVS may be modifiable by both non-invasive neuromodulation (including transcranial magnetic stimulation), as well as behavioural interventions such as the Visual Modification (ModV) paradigm, which has been suggested to reduce patients’ foveal attention to perceived bodily defects. The ModV paradigm has been specifically linked with altered VVS and DVS activation and connectivity.
Here the authors will test in a within-subject crossover design (N = 40) whether neural connectivity and visual perceptual biases in BDD and subclinical BDD can be modified by combining the effects of altered visual attention in the ModV paradigm with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (continuous and intermittent theta burst stimulation; cTBS and iTBS). By combining a behavioural and an exogenous intervention, the authors predict an increase in the magnitude of clinically meaningful improvements in attentional biases in BDD, with iTBS expected to enhance, and cTBS expected to inhibit the effects of visual attention modification through ModV on neural connectivity (measured using fMRI) and visual processing. More specifically, the effect of TBS is hypothesised to be stronger after patients perform ModV.
The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two experts who performed in-depth peer review across multiple rounds of revisions. The authors were responsive in editing their manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments and dedicated much effort to increasing the clarity and interpretability of their power analyses. The revised manuscript was judged to meet the Stage 1 criteria and was awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/ks425 (under temporary private embargo)
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. List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
References
Diaz-Fong, J. P., Lewis, M., Qian, J., Wong, W.-W., Leuchter, A. F., Tadayonnejad, R., Voineskos, D., Konstantinou, G., Lam, E., Blumberger, D. M., Feusner, J. D. (2025). Noninvasive neuromodulation of visual perception and neural connectivity in body dysmorphic disorder: a registered report. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/ks425
| Noninvasive Neuromodulation of Visual Perception and Neural Connectivity in Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A Registered Report | Joel P. Diaz-Fong, Madison Lewis, Jessica Qian, Wan-Wa Wong, Andrew F. Leuchter, Reza Tadayonnejad, Daphne Voineskos, Gerasimos Konstantinou, Eileen Lam, Daniel M. Blumberger, Jamie D. Feusner | <p>Body dysmorphic disorder is a debilitating and understudied psychiatric condition characterized by perceptual distortions pertaining to one’s physical appearance. Current evidence suggests that abnormalities in visual processing likely underlie... | Medical Sciences | Anna Elisabeth Fürtjes | Micheal Fox, Andreas Horn, Samuel Westwood, Philip Lewis, Anonymous, Steven Cohen, Song Luan, Biyu He, David A. McCormick, Paul Fitzgerald, Tim Constandinou, Yang Dan | 2024-05-02 01:31:43 | ||
Self-Affirmation and Prejudice Against Religious Groups: The Role of Ideological MalleabilityDoes ideological malleability moderate the effect of self-affirmation on prejudice?Recommended by Anna Elisabeth Fürtjes based on reviews by Zoltan Dienes and Pete Harris
Self-affirmation may be an effective tool to reduce prejudice and discrimination against minority groups. Its hypothesised mechanism is that prejudice is a defensive act that can be reduced by reinforcing a positive imagine of the self. Such a reinforced self-image is meant to weaken perceived threat to one’s social identity that may be posed by minority groups, such as Muslims in majority Christian countries.
To address mixed evidence for the effectiveness of self-affirmation across the literature, this Registered Report (RR) was designed to elucidate conditions under which self-affirmation may reduce prejudice and discrimination. Whether self-affirmation has the desired effect may be moderated by an individual’s internal representation of secularism. That is, as a reaction to self-affirmation, people may flexibly endorse their feelings towards secularism (‘ideological malleability’) to either reduce prejudice, or maintain and justify it. This study is the first to consider whether this effect depends on a participant’s attitude that French citizens should be able to practice their religion in public places (‘historical’ secularism), or that they should hide it in public (‘new’ secularism).
Alnajjar et al. present a study design (i.e., three-way mixed ANOVA) in which they self-affirmed French participants (N=602) with differing internal representations of secularism. Study results demonstrated that a historical representation of secularism is associated with less effective and behavioural prejudice towards religious groups compared to a new representation of secularism. Participants’ prejudiced attitudes were larger against Muslims than against Christians. It was unexpected that new secularism was linked to negative attitudes towards religious minority groups given that the French government mandated by law that religion should not be practiced in public. Across three self-affirmation conditions (i.e., self-affirmation on a threat-related value, a threat-unrelated value, and no self-affirmation), the authors found no evidence that self-affirmation affected prejudice against religious groups, and there was no evidence that the effectiveness of self-affirmation depended on a participants representation of secularism, which contradicted their pre-registered hypotheses. This paper adds conclusive and sufficiently-powered results to a body of literature with mixed evidence for the effectiveness of self-affirmation.
It increased the robustness of this study that the design considered desirability concerns and employed multiple manipulation checks. By considering nuances of public opinion towards secularism in France specifically, the authors identified a unique opportunity to investigate ideological malleability, which can be challenging to conceive and directly measure.
The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated by two experts who performed in-depth peer review across one round of revisions. There were no substantial changes to the introduction or the methods, the analyses were conducted as planned and additional analyses were labelled as exploratory. The revised manuscript was judged to meet the Stage 2 criteria and was awarded a positive recommendation.
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/f4wm6
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that was used to answer the research question was generated until after IPA.
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals: References
1. Alnajjar, Y., Badea, C., & Sternberg, B. (2024). Self-Affirmation and Prejudice Against Religious Groups: The Role of Ideological Malleability [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/st47h
| Self-Affirmation and Prejudice Against Religious Groups: The Role of Ideological Malleability | Yara Alnajjar, Constantina Badea and Béatrice Sternberg | <p>Self-affirmation has shown mixed findings when used as a prejudice reduction technique, sometimes diminishing prejudice while sometimes increasing it or having no significant effect. In a Registered Report experiment with a French representativ... | Social sciences | Anna Elisabeth Fürtjes | 2024-07-30 11:57:10 | |||
01 Jun 2024
STAGE 1
Can Imagining Actions as Occurring Involuntarily Cause Intentional Behaviour to Feel Involuntary?Can the sense of agency and reality be altered by our meta-cognitive models?Recommended by Anoushiravan Zahedi based on reviews by Zoltan Kekecs and Sophie Siestrup
Alterations in subjective experience, including alterations in the sense of agency (SoA) and reality (SoR), are commonly implicated in direct-verbal suggestions, such as hypnotic suggestions. Although extensively studied, how direct-verbal suggestions can alter the SoA and SoR is not understood (e.g., see Martin & Pacherie, 2019; Zahedi et al., 2024). One class of theories postulates that the alterations in SoA and SoR are related to meta-cognition. For instance, the intention to move or form a mental image can be kept out of conscious awareness, creating a sense of involuntariness (Dienes & Perner, 2007).
Relying on this theory, in the current study Sheldrake and Dienes (2024) postulate that the metacognitive processes related to these alterations can occur by appropriate use of imagination. In other words, by imagining the movement or object to be hallucinated and further imagining the underlying process was outside of awareness, one can elicit alterations in SoA and SoR. To this end, an intervention is devised whereby the participant is repeatedly asked to consider what might help or hinder them from imagining they are unaware of the relevant intention and thereby adjust their imagination. A control group will be asked to increase the feeling of involuntariness or altered reality simply by repeated practice. Afterward, participants will be asked in a test phase the extent to which the suggested experience felt involuntary. 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/f8hsd 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. Dienes, Z. & Perner, J. (2007). Executive control without conscious awareness: The cold control theory of hypnosis. In G. A. Jamieson (Ed.), Hypnosis and conscious states: The cognitive neuroscience perspective (pp. 293-314). Oxford University Press.
2. Martin, J. R. & Pacherie, E. (2019). Alterations of agency in hypnosis: A new predictive coding model. Psychol Rev, 126(1), 133-152. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000134
3. Sheldrake, K. & Dienes, Z. (2043). Can Imagining Actions as Occurring Involuntarily Cause Intentional Behaviour to Feel Involuntary? In principle acceptance of Version 6 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/f8hsd
4. Zahedi, A., Lynn, S. J., & Sommer, W. (2024). Cognitive Simulation along with Neural Adaptation Explain Effects of Suggestions: A Novel Theoretical Framework. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1388347
| Can Imagining Actions as Occurring Involuntarily Cause Intentional Behaviour to Feel Involuntary? | Kevin Sheldrake, Zoltan Dienes | <p>The cold control theory of response to imaginative suggestions calling for distortions in veridical experience (including hypnotic suggestions) states that behavioural and cognitive responses are generated intentionally, but are perceived as in... | Social sciences | Anoushiravan Zahedi | Zoltan Kekecs | 2023-11-25 16:24:53 | ||
08 May 2025
STAGE 1
Cognitive, affective and behavioural effects of temporal comparison with prior aversive experiences in individuals with social anxietyDoes looking back reduce your anxiety now?Recommended by Anoushiravan Zahedi based on reviews by Katie Hobbs and Mariela Mihaylova
Social anxiety, which designates intense fear or anxiety of social situations due to the expectation of negative evaluation, is a relatively common disorder affecting 7-13% of the population (Modini & Abbott, 2016). Given the negative consequences that the disorder has on affected individuals (Matos et al., 2013; Modini & Abbott, 2016), looking for novel methods to ameliorate the symptoms is a societal imperative.
The current study by McCarthy et al. (2025) focuses on the comparison of the current self with previous selves, which, although well-studied in cognitive neuroscience, has not been widely applied as a treatment of clinical and sub-clinical disorders. Nevertheless, comparison with previous selves has been shown to alter cognitive and affective processes and improve current self-evaluation (Broemer et al., 2007; Hanko et al., 2009; Morina, 2021), making it a prime target for handling sub-clinical individuals with social anxiety. The current paper, therefore, investigates whether comparison with previous selves can help individuals with sub-clinical social anxiety in countering their negative affect, which offers valuable clinical and theoretical contributions.
The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the recommender and 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/wumdj
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. Broemer, P., Grabowski, A., Gebauer, J. E., Ermel, O., & Diehl, M. (2007). How temporal distance from past selves influences self‐perception. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 697-714. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.469
2. Hanko, K., Crusius, J., & Mussweiler, T. (2009). When I and me are different: assimilation and contrast in temporal self‐comparisons. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 160-168. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.625
3. Matos, M., Pinto-Gouveia, J., & Gilbert, P. (2013). The effect of shame and shame memories on paranoid ideation and social anxiety. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 20, 334-349. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.1766
4. McCarthy, P. A., Morina, N., & Meyer, T. (2025). Cognitive, affective and behavioural effects of temporal comparison with prior aversive experiences in individuals with social anxiety. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/wumdj
5. Modini, M., & Abbott, M. J. (2016). A Comprehensive Review of the Cognitive Determinants of Anxiety and Rumination in Social Anxiety Disorder. Behaviour Change, 33, 150-171. https://doi.org/10.1017/bec.2016.10
6. Morina, N. (2021). Comparisons Inform Me Who I Am: A General Comparative-Processing Model of Self-Perception. Perspect Psychol Sci, 16, 1281-1299. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620966788
| Cognitive, affective and behavioural effects of temporal comparison with prior aversive experiences in individuals with social anxiety | Peter A. McCarthy, Nexhmedin Morina, Thomas Meyer | <p>Temporal comparisons with past selves have been found to influence current self-appraisals of attributes, including well-being. The comparison process involves using a past self as a standard, while the current self serves as the target. Previo... | Humanities, Social sciences | Anoushiravan Zahedi | 2024-04-18 17:26:31 | |||
06 Mar 2025
STAGE 1
The role of extra-striate areas in conscious motor behavior: a registered report with Fast-Optical ImagingNeural underpinning of conscious perception of visual stimuli disentangled from motor confoundsRecommended by Anoushiravan Zahedi based on reviews by 3 anonymous reviewers
The debate about consciousness and its neural underpinnings is a hot topic in cognitive neuroscience that has driven innovative original research and theoretical frameworks (Dehaene et al., 2006; Lamme, 2006). Consciousness itself can be defined and studied from different perspectives, such as neuropsychology (Laureys et al., 2004; Monti, 2012), applied philosophy (Blanke & Metzinger, 2009), and experimental cognitive neuroscience (Dehaene & Changeux, 2011). However, after several decades of research via different methods and from different perspectives, basic questions regarding consciousness and its neural underpinnings are still debated (Chalmers, 2010). One of the reasons for this ongoing debate is that consciousness cannot be easily disentangled from confounds, such as involvement of other cognitive processes like memory, language, and so forth (Dehaene & Changeux, 2011).
In the current study, Colombari et al. (2025) focus on disentangling neural markers of conscious visual perception from motoric responses. To this end, the study uses a cutting-edge neuroimaging technique, Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS), to measure the neural responses during a Go/No-Go detection task, which is especially designed to gauge visual perception regardless of response production. The study, therefore, is instrumental in addressing the neural foundation of conscious visual perception and is well situated to advance our understanding of consciousness and its neural underpinnings.
The Stage 1 submission was evaluated by three expert reviewers. After several rounds of revision, the recommender determined that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/8ya2t
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. Blanke, O., & Metzinger, T. (2009). Full-body illusions and minimal phenomenal selfhood. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13, 7-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.10.003
2. Chalmers, D. J. (2010). Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. In The Character of Consciousness (pp. 3-34). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311105.003.0001 3. Colombari, E., Parisi, G., Mele, S., Mazzi, C., & Savazzi, S. (2025). The role of extra-striate areas in conscious motor behavior: a registered report with Fast-Optical Imaging. In principle acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/8ya2t
4. Dehaene, S., & Changeux, J. P. (2011). Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing. Neuron, 70, 200-227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2011.03.018
5. Dehaene, S., Changeux, J. P., Naccache, L., Sackur, J., & Sergent, C. (2006). Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: a testable taxonomy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 204-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2006.03.007
6. Lamme, V. A. (2006). Towards a true neural stance on consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 494-501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2006.09.001
7. Laureys, S., Owen, A. M., & Schiff, N. D. (2004). Brain function in coma, vegetative state, and related disorders. The Lancet Neurology, 3, 537-546. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1474-4422(04)00852-x
8. Monti, M. M. (2012). Cognition in the vegetative state. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 8, 431-454. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032511-143050
| The role of extra-striate areas in conscious motor behavior: a registered report with Fast-Optical Imaging | Elisabetta Colombari, Giorgia Parisi, Sonia Mele, Chiara Mazzi, Silvia Savazzi | <p>Disclosing the brain areas responsible for the emergence of visual awareness and their timing of activation represents one of the major challenges in consciousness research. In particular, isolating the neural processes strictly related to cons... | Life Sciences, Social sciences | Anoushiravan Zahedi | 2024-04-26 22:44:25 | |||
24 Feb 2025
STAGE 1
Gold in, gold out. Quality appraisal and risk of bias tools to assess non-intervention studies for systematic reviews in the behavioural sciences: A scoping reviewScoping review of quality appraisal and risk of bias tools and their relevance for behavioral sciencesRecommended by Antica Culina based on reviews by Alejandro Sandoval-Lentisco
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are becoming more popular across sciences, often influencing future research, policies, interventions, and similar. The conclusions of evidence synthesis will depend on the quality of the primary studies (i.e. evidence) included. Thus, the quality and risk of bias in these primary studies must be essential components of evidence synthesis. However, in many scientific fields, including behavioural sciences, this is rarely so.
In this Stage 1 manuscript, Batinović et al. (2025) propose to conduct a systematic map of the existing tools to assess methodological quality of risk of bias tools across scientific fields, and map their applicability for primary studies within the broad field of behavioral sciences. The review will provide a comprehensive overview of how existing tools can be applied to the behavioral sciences, and identify gaps for future development of relevant tools in the field. The protocol and its methods were thoroughly developed, and are suitable to reach the research aims.
The Stage 1 submission was evaluated by two expert reviewers. After two rounds of revision, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria, and the manuscript was awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/4gy5b
Level of bias control achieved: Level 4. At least some of the data/evidence that will be used to answer the research question already exists AND is accessible in principle to the authors (e.g. residing in a public database or with a colleague) BUT the authors certify that they have not yet accessed any part of that data/evidence. List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
References
1. Batinović, L., Pickering, J. S., van den Akker, O. R., Bishop, D., Elsherif, M., Evans, T. R., Gibbs, M., Kalandadze, T., Staaks, J., & Topor, M., Gold in, gold out. Quality appraisal and risk of bias tools to assess non-intervention studies for systematic reviews in the behavioural sciences: A scoping review. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/4gy5b | Gold in, gold out. Quality appraisal and risk of bias tools to assess non-intervention studies for systematic reviews in the behavioural sciences: A scoping review | Lucija Batinović, Jade S. Pickering, Olmo R. van den Akker, Dorothy Bishop, Mahmoud Elsherif, Thomas Rhys Evans, Melissa Gibbs, Tamara Kalandadze, Janneke Staaks, Marta Topor | <p>Systematic reviews depend critically on the methodological quality and bias levels of the studies they synthesise to provide the highest standard of evidence available for informing future research, practice, and policy. Despite the development... | Social sciences | Antica Culina | 2024-06-30 20:24:39 | |||
21 Feb 2022
STAGE 1
Recommended by Benoit Pujol based on reviews by Jean-François Gerard, Rachel Harrison and 1 anonymous reviewer
This submission has been withdrawn (see notice below)Sex-biased dispersal is widely acknowledged to influence range expansion and the geographic limits of species (Trochet et al. 2016). Evidence is accruing that suggests an impact of the learning ability of species on their capacity to colonise new habitats because the ability to learn provides an advantage when confronted to novel challenges (Lee and Thornton 2021). Whether these two mechanisms interact to shape range expansion remains however unknown. One could expect this interaction because both dispersal and the ability to learn are linked to related behaviours (e.g., exploration, Lee and Thornton 2021). In their study entitled “Investigating sex differences in learning in a range-expanding bird”, Alexis J. Breen and Dominik Deffner (Breen and Deffner 2022) propose to test this hypothesis in range-expanding great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) by exploring the individual variation of several behavioural traits (e.g., exploration, neophobia, problem solving, Logan 2016) linked to their learning ability. They will use a colour-reward reinforcement experimental approach to compare the learning performance between male and female great-tailed grackles in three study sites and evaluate whether sex-biased learning ability interacts with sex-biased dispersal. Data will be analysed by a Bayesian reinforcement learning model (Deffner et al. 2020), which was validated. This Stage 1 registered report was evaluated over one round of in-depth review by Jean-François Gerard, Rachel Harrison and one anonymous reviewer, and another round of review by Jean-François Gerard and Rachel Harrison. Based on detailed responses to the comments and the modifications brought to the manuscript by the authors, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA). Withdrawal notice: The Stage 2 manuscript associated with this accepted Stage 1 protocol was submitted to PCI RR on 22 July 2022. On 25 July 2022, the Managing Board offered the opportunity for the authors to revise the manuscript prior to in-depth review. On 7 Sep 2022, the authors withdrew the Stage 2 manuscript from consideration due to time constraints.URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/v3wxb
Level of bias control achieved: Level 2. At least some data/evidence that will be used to answer the research question has been accessed and partially observed by the authors, but the authors certify that they have not yet observed the key variables within the data that will be used to answer the research question AND they have taken additional steps to maximise bias control and rigour.
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
References Trochet, A., Courtois, E. A., Stevens, V. M., Baguette, M., Chaine, A., Schmeller, D. S., Clobert, J., & Wiens, J. J. (2016). Evolution of sex-biased dispersal. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 91(3), 297–320. https://doi.org/10.1086/688097 Lee, V. E., & Thornton, A. (2021). Animal cognition in an urbanised world. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9, 120. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.633947 Logan, C. J. (2016b). Behavioral flexibility in an invasive bird is independent of other behaviors. PeerJ, 4, e2215. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2215 Deffner, D., Kleinow, V., & McElreath, R. (2020). Dynamic social learning in temporally and spatially variable environments. Royal Society Open Science, 7(12), 200734. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200734 Breen, A. J. & Deffner D. (2022). Investigating sex differences in learning in a range-expanding bird., https://github.com/alexisbreen/Sex-differences-in-grackles-learning, in principle acceptance of version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/v3wxb | [WITHDRAWN]: Investigating sex differences in learning in a range-expanding bird | Alexis J. Breen & Dominik Deffner | <p style="text-align: justify;">How might differences in dispersal and learning interact in range expansion dynamics? To begin to answer this question, in this preregistration we detail the background, hypothesis plus associated predictions, and m... | | Life Sciences | Benoit Pujol | Rachel Harrison, Jean-François Gerard, Kate Cross | 2021-11-10 13:12:04 |
