Beyond the semantics communicated by speech, human vocalisations can convey a wealth of non-verbal information, including the speaker’s identity, body size, shape, health, age, intentions, emotional state, and personality characteristics. While much has been studied about the neurocognitive basis of voice processing and perception, the richness of vocalisations leaves open fundamental questions about the aesthetics of (and across) song and speech, including which factors determine our preference (liking) for different vocal styles.

 

In the current study, Bruder et al. (2024) examine the characteristics that determine the enjoyment of voices in different contexts and the extent to which these preferences are shared across different types of vocalisation. Sixty participants will report their degree of liking across a validated stimulus set of naturalistic and controlled vocal performances by female singers performing different melody excerpts as a lullaby, as a pop song and as opera aria, as well as reading the corresponding lyrics aloud as if speaking to an adult audience or to an infant. The authors will then ask two main questions: first if there is a difference in the amount of shared taste (interrater agreement) across contrasting vocal styles, and second, as suggested by sexual selection accounts of voice attractiveness, whether the same performers are preferred across styles.

 
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/7dvme
 
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. Bruder, C., Frieler, K. & Larrouy-Maestri, P. (2024). Voice preferences across contrasting singing and speaking styles. In principle acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/7dvme

Mindset theories suggest that the mere belief in the malleability of human abilities can already help one to develop related performance. On the other hand, one and the same performance situation can also be experienced in various affective ways, which differently contribute to performance outcomes. Arguably, appraising a performance situation as a “threat” instead of “challenge” is associated with maladaptive responses, such as impaired cardiovascular mobilization. If people could experience performance situations as positive challenges, this might also improve performance outcomes. Drawing from these connected theoretical premises, the synergistic mindset intervention was developed and tentatively found to help adolescents in stressful situations (Yeager et al., 2022).
 
In the present registered report, Behnke et al. (2023) build on the above and test whether the synergistic mindset intervention can help individuals in competitive gaming situations. The authors utilize one of the leading esport games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive​, and recruit its active players into randomized control and intervention groups for two weeks. Ultimately, the participants compete in a cash-prize tournament involving measures of affective experience and cardiovascular responses. Behnke et al. (2023) hypothesize that the synergistic mindset group will show greater challenge affective responses and superior performance outcomes. As such, the study design has significant potential to generate valuable evidence for various theoretical models and the synergistic mindset model in particular.
 
The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds by four experts with experimental psychology specializations in mindsets, stress, and statistics. 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/z3adb
 
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.

 

 

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

 

References
 
Behnke M., Lakens D., Petrova K., Chwiłkowska P., Kaczmarek L. D., Jamieson J. P., & Gross J. J. (2023) Optimizing Esports Performance Using a Synergistic Mindsets Intervention. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/z3adb

Yeager D.S., Bryan C.J., Gross J.J., Murray J., Krettek D., Santos P., ... & Jamieson J.P. (2022) A synergistic mindsets intervention protects adolescents from stress. Nature 607, 512–520. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04907-7

Many products that can impact upon health and wellbeing (e.g., alcohol, food) relay information to consumers about the potential risks. However, such information is commonly provided in suboptimal format for gambling-related products. To encourage safer gambling, research has therefore recommended that information about the average loss from a gambling product (“house edge”) or percentage payout (“return-to-player”) should be communicated, with the former translating to better perceived understanding by gamblers. This Registered Report aimed to experimentally compare two phrasings of the house edge against a control return-to-player to arrive at the most effective phrasing to aid gambler’s perceived chances of winning and their factual understanding of the statistical outcomes of their bet. Using a hypothetical gambling scenario, a sample of 3,333 UK-based online gamblers received one of three phrasings: an original house-edge (“his game keeps 10% of all money bet on average”), an alternative house-edge (“on average this game is programmed to cost you 10% of your stake on each bet”) or return-to-player (“this game has an average percentage payout of 90%”). Two outcome measures were employed to judge the effectiveness of this information: gamblers’ perceived changes of winning and factual understanding. The findings indicate that the two-house edge formats were more effective in communicating gambling-related harms than the return-to-player format, but the original house edge phrasing appeared to be the most optimal as it decreased gambler’s perceived chances of winning and increased their factual understanding compared to return-to-player. These results can therefore inform public health policies to reduce gambling-related harm by presenting the most effective communication of gambling risk.

 

After two in-depth reviews, 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/5npy9
 
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. Newall, P. W. S., James, R. J. E. & Maynard, O. M. (2023). How does the phrasing of house edge information affect gamblers’ perceptions and level of understanding? A Registered Report. Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pfnzd

Numeracy – the ability to understand and work with numbers – is associated with a wide range of social and health-related outcomes, including socioeconomic status, employment, literacy, reasoning, and life satisfaction. A substantial body of evidence has also shown links between numeracy and decision-making, prompting the question of how it relates to finer-grained measures of reasoning, judgment and affect/emotion.

 

In the current study, Zhu and Feldman repeated four influential experiments from a study by Peters et al. (2006), which reported links between numeracy and performance on a variety of decision-making tasks, including attribute framing, frequency-percentage framing, susceptibility to affective influences, and various cognitive biases. The authors also explored several extended questions, including refinements of the original hypotheses and an examination of the relationship between numeracy and confidence in numeric judgments (subjective numeracy).

 

The results broadly constitute a successful replication, with higher numeracy associated with weaker attribute framing and susceptibility to bias. The relationship between numeracy and the frequency-percentage framing effect – that is, the change in decision-making when numbers are presented as frequencies (e.g. 5 out of 100) rather than percentages (e.g. 5%) – was inconclusive for the main analysis that treated numeracy as a categorical variable (low vs. high); however the link emerged reliably in exploratory analyses that considered numeracy as a continuous variable. The outcomes of the extended analyses were mixed, revealing evidence for a potentially weak relationship between numeracy and confidence.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewer's 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/r73fb

 

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. 

 

 

 

 

1. Zhu, M. & Feldman, G. (2022). Revisiting the links between numeracy and decision making: Replication Registered Report of Peters et al. (2006) with an extension examining confidence. Acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/62wqb

 

2. Peters, E., Västfjäll, D., Slovic, P., Mertz, C. K., Mazzocco, K., & Dickert, S. (2006). Numeracy and decision making. Psychological Science, 17, 407-413. https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-9280.2006.01720.x

The production effect is an intriguing memory phenomenon in which recall and recognition are improved when people read and study words aloud rather than silently. Although robust to a range of contexts, materials and manipulations, the underlying mechanisms that cause the production effect remain to be fully understood, largely due to the wide range of processes that are engaged during speaking compared to silent reading.

 

In the current study, Roembke and Brown (2024) ask whether semantic encoding – the encoding of new information based on its meaningful characteristics rather than sensory/perceptual characteristics – is a driving factor in production-enhanced memory. Across two carefully-controlled experiments in bilingual participants, the authors will test the hypothesis that the production effect should persist when items are matched in semantic but not other features at learning and recognition stages. If semantic encoding at least partially underpins the production effect, then they expect to observe it both when recognition items are presented as pictures or translations (their semantic recognition condition), and when recognition items match those at learning (their veridical recognition condition in which the same written words are presented at learning and recognition). Assuming also that the production effect does not rely exclusively on semantic encoding, the authors expect the production effect to be reduced in the semantic recognition conditions relative to veridical conditions in which words are matched on multiple linguistic features. 

 

The results of these experiments hold important implications for theoretical models of production-enhanced memory. If the authors find that the production effect persists when studied words can be recognised on their semantic features then this would suggest that production influences semantic encoding, which would in turn support theoretical models proposing that speaking engages modality-independent associations with semantic features. On the other hand, if no production effect is observed when participants are asked to recognise pictures or translations, this would raise the possibility that production may have little or no influence on semantic encoding, which would instead support alternative theories suggesting that speaking adds only modality-dependent features to memory traces.

 

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).
 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/qc6rz
 
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:

 

 

Roembke, T. C. & Brown, R. M. (2024). The role of semantic encoding in production-enhanced memory: A registered report. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/qc6rz