We may not believe what our memory tells us: Memory may deliver a compelling recollection we believe did not happen (we know we were not there at the time); and we may know an event happened that we fail to remember (even for when we were not drunk!). That is, there can be distrust in remembering and distrust in forgetting. Previous work by the authors has looked at this through a signal detection lens, reporting in separate studies that people who have distrust in remembering have either a high or low criterion for saying "old" (Zhang et al, 2023, 2024a). A plausible explanation for these contrasting results is that the criterion can either be the means by which false memories are generated enabling the distrust (low criterion); or rather, in conditions where accuracy is at stake, the means for compensating for the distrust (high criterion).

 

In the current study by Zhang et al (2024b), participants will be incentivised to be as accurate as possible, and in a memory test given feedback about commission errors or, in another group, ommission errors. As a manipulation check, the authors will test that the feedback increases distrust in remembering or distrust in forgetting, respectively, compared to a no feedback control group. Crucially, the authors hypothesize that people will adjust the criterion to say "old" in a compensatory way in each group. The study uses inference by intervals to provide a fairly severe test of this hypothesis.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over multiple rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' and recommender's comments, 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/x69qt
 
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:

 

 

 

1. Zhang, Y., Qi, F., Otgaar, H., Nash, R. A., & Jelicic, M. (2023). A Tale of Two Distrusts: Memory Distrust towards Commission and Omission Errors in the Chinese Context. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000134

 

2. Zhang, Y., Otgaar, H., Nash, R. A., & Rosar, L. (2024). Time and memory distrust shape the dynamics of recollection and belief-in-occurrence. Memory, 32, 484–501. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2024.2336166

 

3. Zhang, Y., Otgaar, H., Nash, R. A., & Li, C. (2024b). The effects of memory distrust toward commission and omission on recollection-belief correspondence and memory errors. In principle acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/x69qt

 

One of the hallmarks of cognitive control is the ability to flexibly update attention and action when goals change. The prefrontal cortex has long been identified as important for such updating, but much remains to be understood about the anatomical and temporal mechanisms that support cognitive flexibility within prefrontal networks. In the current study, Jackson et al. (2024) build upon insights from recent transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and neuroimaging studies to investigate the critical role of prefrontal cortex for updating goals and selecting behaviourally-relevant stimuli.

 

To measure updating, the authors deploy an attentional switching paradigm in which participants selectively attend to one feature of a novel object (colour or form) while ignoring the other feature. On each trial, a symbol (called a rule cue) indicates whether to attend to the colour (green or blue) or to the form (X or non-X) of the upcoming object. By mapping each stimulus response to a separate button press (two buttons for the two colours; two buttons for the two features), the authors can then categorise different types of behavioural errors – focusing especially on attending incorrectly to the task-irrelevant feature (rule error) vs. applying the correct rule but failing to correctly identify the task-relevant feature (stimulus error). If disruption of a specific cortical region causes a selective increase in one type of error, then this would indicate that the stimulated region is important for either rule processing or stimulus processing.

 

The proposal includes a number of key features that add depth and rigor to the investigation. First, to probe the anatomical specificity of cognitive control, the authors will contrast the effect of TMS delivered to different prefrontal regions that reside within different networks and may have divergent roles in cognitive control: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, part of the multiple-demand network) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC, part of the default mode network). Moreover, unlike many previous TMS studies, the authors will use electric field modelling to normalise cortical stimulation strength between regions, enabling a more controlled anatomical comparison. Second, since the task involves responding to a rule cue and then selectively attending to a task-relevant feature, it is likely that a particular brain region could be selectively critical at a specific time – for instance, if dlPFC were important for rule processing then it should only be necessary shortly after (or around) presentation of the rule cue. To capture the temporal specificity of cortical involvement, the authors will apply a short burst of TMS at different times, beginning either +150ms after the cue or +700ms during stimulus processing. In a preliminary study, the authors used magnetoencephalography (MEG) in combination with the same behavioural task and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to identify these epochs for TMS. Finally, the experiment includes a range of additional control conditions and quality checks to rule out alternative explanations of potential findings, such as TMS impairing perception of the rule cue rather than implementation of the rule, and the effect of peripheral TMS artefacts. Overall, the study promises to reveal a range of intriguing new insights into the timecourse and anatomical specificity of cognitive updating, with implications for theories of prefrontal cortical function.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' and recommender’s 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/7pxjz (under temporary private embargo)

 

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:

 

 

 

Jackon, J. B, Runhao, L., & Woolgar, A. (2024). Causal dynamics of task-relevant rule and stimulus processing in prefrontal cortex. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/7pxjz

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

In a previous analysis of data from 988 participants in the Hamburg City Health Study (HCHS), Schlemm and colleagues (2022) reported significant associations between the extent of cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) and dynamic functional connectivity measures from resting state fMRI. Specifically, the volume of white matter hyperintensities of presumed vascular origin, a structural indicator of cSVD, was negatively related to the proportion of time (‘fractional occupancy’) spent in the two most occupied functional brain states. Reduced fractional occupancy was also associated with longer times to complete part B of the Trail Making Test.

 

In the present Registered Report, Ingwersen and colleagues (2023) successfully replicated these associations between structural, functional and cognitive measures in a sample of 1651 HCHS participants not included in the earlier study. An exploratory multiverse analysis found that the associations were generally robust to different brain parcellation and confound regression strategies. These replicable patterns reinforce the idea that cSVD may disrupt the brain’s ability to enter and maintain distinct functional modes, and that these changes in functional dynamics are predictive of cognitive impairment.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was assessed over one round of in-depth review. The recommender judged that responses to reviewer comments were appropriate, and that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria for recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/9yhzc
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 2. At least some data/evidence that was used to answer the research question had been accessed and partially observed by the authors prior to Stage 1 in-principle acceptance, but the authors certify that they had not yet observed the key variables within the data that were used to answer the research question AND they took additional steps to maximise bias control and rigour.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

 

1. Schlemm, E., Frey, B. M., Mayer, C., Petersen, M., Fiehler, J., Hanning, U., Kühn, S., Twerenbold, R., Gallinat, J., Gerloff, C., Thomalla, G. & Cheng, B. (2022). Equalization of brain state occupancy accompanies cognitive impairment in cerebral small vessel disease. Biological Psychiatry, 92, 592-602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2022.03.019

 

2. Ingwersen, T., Mayer, C., Petersen, M., Frey, B. M., Fiehler, J., Hanning, U., Kühn, S., Gallinat, J., Twerenbold, R., Gerloff, C., Cheng, B., Thomalla, G. & Schlemm, E. (2023). Functional MRI brain state occupancy in the presence of cerebral small vessel disease -- a pre-registered replication analysis of the Hamburg City Health Study. Acceptance of Version 2.01 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://github.com/csi-hamburg/HCHS-brain-states-RR/blob/f9d00adbbcf9593d8d191bf5b93912141b80ab1b/manuscript/build/main.pdf

 

The Medusa effect is a recently described phenomenon in which people judge a person to be more mindful when they appear as a picture (termed L1) than as a picture within a picture (L2). Across a series of experiments, Will et al. (2021) reported that at higher levels of abstraction, images of people were judged lower in realness (how real the person seemed), experience (the ability to feel) and agency (the ability to plan and act), and also benefited less from prosocial behaviour. The findings provide an intriguing window into mind perception – the extent to which we attribute minds and mental capacities to others.

 

In the current study, Han et al. (2023) undertook a close replication of two experiments from the original report by Will et al. (2021), asking first, whether the level of pictorial abstraction influences ratings of realness, agency and experience, and second, whether it also influences prosocial behaviour as measured in the dictator game (with participants predicted to allocate more money to recipients presented as pictures than as pictures within pictures). In the event of a non-replication using the original materials, the authors planned to further repeat the experiments using newly generated stimuli that are better matched for cultural context and more tightly controlled along various dimensions.

 

Results supported all pre-registered hypotheses. Participants rated and perceived L1 stimuli as having significantly higher levels of realness, agency, and experience than L2, and they also allocated significantly more money to L1 recipients than L2 recipients in a dictator game. Furthermore, participants who judged L1 as higher than L2 on all three dimensions also differentiated significantly between L1 and L2 in the dictator game, indicating a relationship between mind perception and prosociality. Overall, the findings confirm that pictures with lower levels of abstraction are perceived as more mindful and are associated with higher levels of prosocial behavior. Consequently, the results suggest that the Medusa effect is a reproducible phenomenon.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, 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/xj46z

 

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
• Experimental Psychology
• Journal of Cognition
• Meta-Psychology
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research and Practice
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open
   

 

1. Will, P., Merritt, E., Jenkins, R., & Kingstone, A. (2021). The Medusa effect reveals levels of mind perception in pictures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(32), e2106640118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106640118

 

2. Han, J., Zhang, M., Liu, J., Song, Y. & Yamada, Y. (2023).The Medusa effect: A registered replication report of Will, Merritt, Jenkins, and Kingstone (2021). Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/yqnu8