Adverse environments involving threat, uncertainty, deprivation, and stress have been shown to have significant impacts on cognition and development. In this Stage 2 manuscript, Vermeent et al. (2024) adhere to their Stage 1 protocol, investigating the effects of adversity on working memory (WM) using a comprehensive, psychometric modeling approach. The authors aimed to clarify seemingly contradictory findings from previous research: The evidence for working memory capacity impairments in adverse environments versus the possibility that adversity might enhance specific aspects of WM, such as updating ability. Moreover, they examined the effects of distinct types of adversity—neighborhood threat, material deprivation, and unpredictability—on WM performance.

 

The results of the study were, overall, inconclusive: the authors did not find consistent associations between adversity and either WM capacity or WM updating ability. Despite using a large sample and employing latent variable modeling, the study did not reveal significant effects that were either clearly positive or negative for any type of adversity examined. In addition, no evidence for equivalence to zero associations was found. The lack of clear associations suggests that the relationship between adversity and WM is likely more complex than previously thought.

 

As with the Stage 1 evaluation, this manuscript has undergone a rigorous peer review process at Stage 2. The reviewers included specialists in child and youth cognitive development. The constructive feedback from the reviewers ensured that the pre-registered protocol was followed accurately, deviations were reported appropriately, and all concerns raised were addressed satisfactorily. These processes helped to refine Vermeent et al.'s methods and confirm that the planned analysis was followed. Despite the inconclusive results, this study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the subtle effects of adversity on working memory by providing transparent and rigorous findings that add valuable data to the field. Therefore, I am fully confident that this manuscript is suitable for Stage 2 recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/dp7wc
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some data/evidence that was used to the answer the research question had been previously accessed by the authors (e.g. downloaded or otherwise received), but the authors certify that they had not yet observed ANY part of the data/evidence until after Stage 1 in-principle acceptance.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

 

1. Vermeent, S., Schubert, A.-L., DeJoseph, M. L., Denissen, J. J. A, van Gelder, J.-L. & Frankenhuis, W. E. (2024). Inconclusive evidence for associations between adverse experiences in adulthood and working memory performance [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://github.com/StefanVermeent/liss_wm_profiles_2023/blob/master/manuscript/stage2_tracked.pdf

Electronic sports (esports), the competitive play of video games, has seen a large surge in popularity over the past few decades. Millions of people nowadays participate in esports as a hobby, and many consider becoming professional esports athletes as a potential career path. However, psychological factors that may predict one's long-term success in esports have remained unclear.

In the current study, Martončik and colleagues (2023) propose to examine potential predictors of long-term esports success, in three currently most impactful PC esports games, namely League of Legends, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Fortnite. Based on an extensive review of the literature and four pilot studies, the authors will examine to what extent naive practice and deliberate practice, as well as other psychological factors such as attention, speed of decision-making, reaction time, teamwork, intelligence and persistence, can predictor player's highest rank in the past 12 months, as an indicator of long-term success. Deliberate practice has been proposed to play an essential role in the development of expertise in other domains, and the current study offers a test of the role of both naive and deliberate practice in long-term esports success. The novel measurement on naive and deliberate practice, developed as part of the current investigation, will also be a valuable contribution to future research on esports. Lastly, from an applied perspective, the results of the current study will be of great interest to individuals who are considering pursuing a professional career in esports, as well as professional and semi-professional esports teams and coaches.

This Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on the comprehensive responses to the reviewers' feedback, 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/84zbv
 
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: 
 

 
Martončik, M., Karhulahti, V.-M., Jin, Y. & Adamkovič, M. (2023). Psychological predictors of long-term esports success: A Registered Report, in principle acceptance of Version 1.4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/84zbv

The excessive consumption of energy-dense but nutrient-poor foods and drinks can lead to many health problems. There is thus an increasing need for tools that may help people reduce the consumption of such foods and drinks. Training people to consistently respond or not respond to food items has been shown to reliably change their subjective evaluations of and choices for these items, mostly within laboratory settings. However, evidence on whether such trainings can also modify real consumption behavior remains mixed.

Najberg et al. developed a mobile-based response training game that combines two training tasks, one in which people consistently do not respond to sugary drinks (i.e., the go/no-go training), and one in which they consistently respond to water items rapidly (i.e., the cue-approach training). Recent work showed that after the training, participants in the experimental group reported more reduction in liking for sugary drinks and more increase in liking for water items compared to the control group. However, both groups showed equivalent reduction in self-reported consumption of sugary drinks (Najberg et al. 2023a). 

In the current study, Najberg and colleagues will further examine the efficacy of the gamified response training, by testing whether the training can help people resist the consumption of sugary drinks (Najberg et al. 2023b). Participants will be divided into experimental and control groups, and will receive the respective training for a minimum of seven days (and up to 20 days). After completing the training, they will be asked to avoid the trained sugary drinks, and the number of days in which they successfully adhere to this restrictive diet will be used as the dependent variable. Reporting the time at which one consumed a certain drink is presumably easier than reporting the exact volume consumed (cf. Najberg et al. 2023a). Furthermore, certain diets may require people to avoid specific foods and drinks entirely, rather than merely reduce the amount of consumption. Examining whether the training will be effective in this setting will therefore be informative. The authors will additionally examine whether the amount of training one completes, and the changes in subjective valuation of drinks after training, will be correlated with the successful avoidance of sugary drinks. These results will offer insights into the underlying mechanisms of the training and provide guidance on how they may best be implemented in applied settings.

This Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over three rounds of in-depth reviews by three expert reviewers and the recommender. The recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

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:
 

• Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Collabra: Psychology
• F1000Research
• Journal of Cognition
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open

References

1. Najberg, H., Mouthon, M., Coppin, G., & Spierer, L. (2023a). Reduction in sugar drink valuation and consumption with gamified executive control training. Scientific Reports, 13, 10659. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36859-x

2. Najberg, H., Tapparel, M., & Spierer, L. (2023b). Sugary drinks devaluation with response training helps to resist their consumption. In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/97aez

Online sports betting is becoming increasingly popular worldwide, which has raised concerns about the negative consequences it has on both individual health and public health. To prevent and reduce these negative consequences, it is important to understand how gambling-related harms arise in the context of online sports betting. 

Impulsivity has long been recognized as a risk factor for disordered gambling, yet how impulsivity may lead to gambling-related harms is not entirely clear. In the current study, Jacob and colleagues (2024) aim to examine this question using a longitudinal cross-lagged panel design. Regular online sports bettors will be invited to fill out measures of impulsivity (including impulsive choice, impulsive action, and impulsivity personality) and gambling disorder symptoms three times at three-month intervals. Player tracking data on these players' online betting behavior in these three-month intervals will then be retrieved from the online gambling provider. Combining these data provides a unique opportunity to test the hypotheses that impulsivity may lead to riskier online gambling behavior, which in turn may lead to more gambling-related problems later on. The results of the current study will offer novel insights into the causal pathways from impulsivity to disordered gambling in online sports betting, and may also inform the development of early prevention strategies to reduce gambling-related harms.

The current Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two reviewers and the recommender. 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/7wsfh
 
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
 
1. Jacob, A., Joshanloo, M., Czernecka, R., & Kräplin, A. (2024). Impulsivity and online sports betting behavior: Untangling the causal relationship. In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/7wsfh

Many people nowadays struggle with maintaining a healthy diet. Despite the intentions to eat healthily, they often over-consume highly palatable yet nutrient-poor foods and drinks, which in turn can lead to many health problems. There is therefore a need to develop tools that can help people resist the (over-)consumption of such foods and drinks. 

Previous work has shown that training people to execute certain motor responses toward food items can modify their liking for these items, which may also influence their subsequent consumption behavior. Based on these findings, Najberg et al. (2023) developed a mobile game that combined two food-related response training tasks, namely the go/no-go training (Veling et al., 2017) and the cue-approach training (Schonberg et al., 2014). The experimental group was trained to consistently inhibit their responses toward sugary drinks in the go/no-go training, and consistently respond to water items in the cue-approach training (i.e., 100% consistent mapping). In the control group, the mapping between an item and response requirement was 50%, such that participants executed both go and no-go responses toward sugary drinks and water. Najberg et al. (2023) found that after the training, the experimental group reported more reduction in liking for sugary drinks and more increase in liking for water items compared to the control group. However, both groups showed equivalent reduction in self-reported consumption of sugary drinks. 

Using the same design (i.e., 100% vs. 50% consistency), in the current study, Najberg et al. (2024) further examined whether the combined go/no-go and cue-approach training game could help people resist the consumption of sugary drinks. Participants were divided into the experimental and control group (N = 100 and 92, respectively), and received the respective training for a minimum of seven days (and up to 20 days). After completing the training, they were asked to avoid the trained sugary drinks. The number of days in which they reported to successfully adhere to this restrictive diet was used as the main dependent variable. Contrary to their predictions, the two groups did not differ in how long they resisted the consumption of sugary drinks after training. Both groups showed equivalent reductions in liking for sugary drinks (contrary to the finding in Najberg et al., 2023), but this reduction in liking was not correlated with the number of successful days of diet in the experimental group. Lastly, those who trained for more days in the experimental group also adhered to the diet for a longer duration, but this correlation might be explained by differences in motivation across individuals.

Together, these results suggest that consistently withholding responses toward sugary drinks and responding to water items does not help people resist the consumption of sugary drinks, compared to a control intervention in which the mapping is 50%. More research is therefore needed to test the effectiveness of food-related response training in changing consumption behavior outside of laboratory contexts.

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over three rounds of review by two expert reviewers who also assessed the Stage 1 manuscript. Following detailed responses to the recommender and the reviewers’ comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria and awarded a positive recommendation.

 

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: 

 

• Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Collabra: Psychology
• F1000Research
• Journal of Cognition
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open

 

1. Najberg, H., Mouthon, M., Coppin, G., & Spierer, L. (2023). Reduction in sugar drink valuation and consumption with gamified executive control training. Scientific Reports, 13, 10659. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36859-x

 

2. Veling, H., Lawrence, N. S., Chen, Z., van Koningsbruggen, G. M., & Holland, R. W. (2017). What Is Trained During Food Go/No-Go Training? A Review Focusing on Mechanisms and a Research Agenda. Current Addiction Reports, 4, 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40429-017-0131-5

 

3. Schonberg, T., Bakkour, A., Hover, A. M., Mumford, J. A., Nagar, L., Perez, J., & Poldrack, R. A. (2014). Changing value through cued approach: An automatic mechanism of behavior change. Nature Neuroscience, 17, 625–630. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3673

4. Najberg, H., Tapparel, M., & Spierer, L. (2024). The capacity of response training to help resist the consumption of sugary drinks [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/eu7j4?view_only=4934c0215f2943cfb42e019792a30b53