‘Pseudoneglect’ is a small, lateralised bias of visuospatial attention towards the left side of space, and is typically observed in healthy adults. Recently, Strauch et al. (2022) reported that bright stimuli presented in the left visual field induced a greater constriction of the pupil (the pupillary light reflex) compared to the same bright stimuli presented in the right visual field. Further, the pupillary restriction bias was positively correlated with a behavioural measure of pseudoneglect (the greyscales task). This is potentially an important development for attention research, because the passive nature of the task, in addition to the ability to track the time course of the bias measures, could provide a new, and highly sensitive, method of studying spatial attention.

 

In this report, Burns and McIntosh (2023) aim to replicate and extend the study of Strauch et al. (2022). The extension centres around investigating whether the pupillary biases are influenced by recording pupillary responses from the right or left eye. In their pilot replication data, Burns & McIntosh identified a larger constriction in response to stimuli on the right side when recording from the right eye. They hypothesise that pupillary biases may be stronger to stimuli presented in the ipsilateral, rather than contralateral, side of space.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was reviewed over 2 rounds by 2 reviewers, including the authors of the study being replicated. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers’ comments and edits to the Stage 1 report, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance.

 

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. Strauch, C., Romein, C., Naber, M., Van der Stigchel, S. & Ten Brink, A. F. (2022). The orienting response drives pseudoneglect—Evidence from an objective pupillometric method. Cortex, 151, 259-271.

 
2. Burns, N. E. & McIntosh, R. D. (2023). Does pupillometry provide a valid measure of spatial attentional bias (pseudoneglect)? In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/ua9jn

The human capacity and need for play has been recognized as a central psychotherapeutic component for a long time (e.g. Winnicott 1971). More recently, experts have started developing specialized digital gameplay to be used as therapeutic tools and even utilizing existing videogames for similar purposes (see Ceranoglu 2010). On the other hand, the concerns about some players becoming overinvolved in videogames also led the World Health Organization to include “gaming disorder” in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases, which echoes the nuance required to address human-technology relationships in general.  
 
In the present registered report, Billieux et al. (2024) make use of analog structured role-play in a new intervention aiming to mitigate social anxiety and problematic gaming patterns in online gamers. The authors carried out an exploratory pilot to test a 10-week protocol over three modules inspired by the well-known Dungeons & Dragons franchise. Through a multiple single-case design with a 3-month follow-up, the authors carried out the pilot with 20 participants (two dropped out), which enabled collecting valuable early data about the feasibility and potential of the intervention. 
 
Weekly psychometric assessments indicated that the intervention may support participants and it should continue to be studied in order to comprehensively evaluate its effectiveness. Feedback obtained from participants and other parts of the pilot project enabled identifying elements (e.g., difficulty adjustments), which can be given attention usefully in intervention development. Without question, the study by Billieux et al. (2024) is to be commended for highly transparent documentation of the project, which allows future researchers and intervention developers to learn from the pilot beyond initial results. Among other relevant materials, the supplements provide a detailed case study and item-level psychometric reporting, which can help the development of technical solutions and new hypotheses.
 
Taken together, the study by Billieux et al. (2024) paves the way for open science invention piloting in the field. The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated by three experts (areas: experimental methods, psychopathology, gaming) via in-depth peer review across two rounds. 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/h7qat

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: 

 

• Collabra: Psychology
• F1000Research
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Swiss Psychology Open

 

References
 
1. Billieux, J., Fournier, L., Rochat, L., Georgieva, I., Eben, C., Malmdorf Andersen, M., King, D., Simon, O., Khazaal, Y., Lieberoth, A. & Blocha., J. (2024) Can playing Dungeons and Dragons be good for you? A registered exploratory pilot program using offline Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) to mitigate social anxiety and reduce problematic involvement in multiplayer online videogames [Stage 2 RR]. Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/z32d5

 

2. Ceranoglu, T. (2010). Video Games in Psychotherapy. Review of General Psychology, 14 (2). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019439

 

3. Winnicott, D. (1971/2009). Playing and Reality. Routledge.

Data sharing is perhaps the most fundamental step for increasing the transparency and reproducibility of scientific research. However, the goals of open science must be tempered by ethical considerations, protecting the privacy and safety of research participants. Bridging this gap causes challenges for many fields, such as human neuroimaging. Brain images, as measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are unique to the participant and therefore contain identifying information by definition. One way to mitigate the risk to participants arising from public data sharing has been "defacing" the MRI scans, i.e., literally removing the part of the image that contains the face and surrounding tissue, while preserving the brain structure. This procedure however also removes information that is not (or at least minimally) identifiable. It also remains unclear whether defacing the images affects image quality and thus the information necessary for addressing many research questions.

 

The current study by Provins et al. (2023) seeks to address this question. Leveraging a publicly available "IXI dataset" comprising hundreds of T1-weighted structural MRI scans, they will assess the effect of defacing on manual and automatic estimates of image quality. Specifically, the researchers will compare image quality ratings by experts for a subset of 185 images. They hypothesise that images in which facial features have been removed are typically assigned higher quality ratings. Moreover, using a full data set of 580 images, which have been obtained across three scanning sites, they will also test the impact defacing MRI scans has on automated quality measures obtained with MRIQC software. The results of this study should have important implications for open science policy and for designing the optimal procedures for sharing structural MRI data in an ethical way. For example, if the authors' hypothesis is confirmed, studies relying on MRI quality measures might be better served by a custodianship model where identifiable data is shared under strict conditions, rather than relying on publishing defaced data. More generally, the outcome of this study may have significant legal implications in many jurisdictions.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated at the inital triage stage by the Recommender and PCI:RR team, and another round of in-depth review by two experts. After a detailed response and substantial revisions, the recommender judged the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/qcket (under temporary private embargo)
 
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:
 

 

1. Provins, C., Savary, E., Alemán-Gómez, Y., Richiardi, J., Poldrack, R. A., Hagmann, P. & Esteban, O. (2023). Defacing biases in manual and automated quality assessments of structural MRI with MRIQC, in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/qcket

As virtual reality environments become more common, it is important to understand our sensorimotor interactions with them. In real world settings, sensory information is supplemented by prior expectations from past experiences, aiding efficient action control. In VR, the relative role of expectations could decrease due to a lack of prior experience with the environment, or increase because sensory information is impoverished or ambiguous. Harris, Arthur and Buckingham (2024) propose to test these possibilities by comparing a real-world object lifting task and a VR version in which the same objects are lifted but visual feedback is substituted by a virtual view. The experiment uses the Size-Weight Illusion (SWI) and the Material Weight Illusion (MWI). In these paradigms, the visual appearance of the object induces expectations about weight that can affect the perception of weight during lifting, and the fingertip forces generated. The degree to which the visual appearance of objects induces differences in perceived weight, and in measured fingertip forces, will index the influence of prior expectations for these two paradigms. The analyses will test whether the influence of prior expectations is lower or higher in the VR set-up than in real-world lifting. The outcomes across tasks (SWI and MWI) and measures (perceived weight, fingertip forces) will broaden our understanding of the role of predictive sensorimotor control in novel virtual environments.

 

After three rounds of evaluation, with input from two external reviewers, the recommender judged that the Stage 1 manuscript met the criteria for 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
• Communications in Kinesiology
• Experimental Psychology
• In&Vertebrates
• Journal of Cognition
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open

 
References

 

1. Harris, D. J., Arthur, T., & Buckingham, G. (2024). Does ‘virtuality’ affect the role of prior expectations in perception and action? Comparing predictive grip and lifting forces in real and virtual environments. In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/36jhb

 

Research in clinical psychology has found that interpretation bias (perceiving ambiguous information in a systematically negative or hostile way) and repetitive negative thinking (recurrent, prolonged worry or rumination) are associated with a range of psychopathologies – including depression, anxiety and paranoia – but the complex interplay between them in driving symptomatology is unclear. Here, Chung and Cheung (2022) propose a longitudinal examination of the directional relationship between interpretation bias and psychological symptoms in subclinical depression and paranoia, as well as the potential transdiagnostic mediating role of repetitive negative thinking. Using an online three-wave design, they ask whether the association between negative interpretation biases and psychological symptoms is bidirectional, whether negative interpretation biases are associated with repetitive negative thinking over time, and whether repetitive negative thinking is associated with psychological symptoms over time. They will also test whether negative interpretation biases and psychological symptoms exert reciprocal influences across dimensions through repetitive negative thinking, and whether repetitive negative thinking acts as a transdiagnostic mediator for depression and paranoid thoughts. Overall, the study aims to generate a clearer understanding of the relationship between interpretation biases and subclinical symptomatology, as well as clarifying the role of rumination as a transdiagnostic mechanism that mediates psychopathology.

 

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/89n7u (currently under 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:

 

 

1. Chung, H.-F. & Cheung, S.-H. (2022). Repetitive negative thinking as a transdiagnostic mediator in the interplay of interpretation biases and psychological symptoms in depression and paranoia: A three-wave longitudinal study, in principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/89n7u