Experimental 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 present study, Chen et al. (2024) will use a novel version of a combined go/no-go / approach avoidance paradigm to test the effects on choice of consumable candy. In this task, participants are randomly assigned to make a response framed as a go / no-go action or an approach / avoidance action to control a shopping cart (Chen & Van Dessel, 2024). Following this they will complete a food choice task in which participants make a series of binary choices for different candies. Their performance on this task will lead to the receipt of real-world candy. The authors aim to test whether the same responses will lead to different effects on food choice, depending on how the response was interpreted (e.g. participants in the approach/avoidance instruction group will select Approach items more often than those in the go/no-go instruction group). The study is well powered to detect the proposed effect size of interest, and data will be analysed using Bayesian mixed-effect models.
 
This study will shed light onto theoretical predictions of action interpretation on stimulus value and choice, which may improve the efficacy of behaviour change tools such as approach bias training in future.  
 

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/bn5xa

 

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. Chen, Z. and 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

 

2. Chen, Z., Van Dessel, P., and Figner, B. (2024). Examining the role of action interpretation in changes in choice induced by go/no-go and approach/avoidance responses. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/bn5xa
 
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. Yang, Y., Qi, L., Morys, F., Wu, Q. and Chen, H. (2022). Food-Specific Inhibition Training for Food Devaluation: A Meta-Analysis. Nutrients, 14, 1363. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14071363
 

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

A growing body of research suggests that feelings of curiosity are associated with better memory for new information. However, while curiosity has been broadly defined as an instrinsic drive to obtain information, much of this existing work has focused on learning of trivia facts or factual information, settings where people have relatively little freedom to actively explore aspects of the environment that generate those feelings of curiosity. In this Stage 1 manuscript, O'Donoghue, Cen, and Gruber (2025) propose to conduct an experiment to examine whether feelings of curiosity promote the formation of cognitive maps when exploring novel spatial environments. Participants will encounter a series of virtual rooms for which they report their level of curiosity before exploring each room. The experiment will compare groups of participants who can actively explore for themselves vs. passive observers of the same exploration patterns. The proposed analyses will examine whether anticipatory curiosity leads to better memory for the spatial environments for both active or passive participants, or if benefits to memory are mediated by active participants' ability to act of their feelings of curiosity through their exploration of the environment. The findings of the study will provide new insight into the mechanisms through which anticipatory curiosity enhances memory.

 

The Stage 1 submission was evaluated by three expert reviewers. After three rounds of revision, the recommender determined that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and 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.

 

 

 

 

1. O'Donoghue, E. M., Cen, D., & Gruber, M. (2025). Disentangling the Influences of Curiosity and Active Exploration on Cognitive Map Formation. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/86r3x

The popularity of gaming has spurred interest in understanding its impact on wellbeing. Significant research has investigated the impact of gaming from multiple angles. However, prior research has been limited by a lack of behavioural data that could be more reliable in examining the impact of gaming than self-reports of behavior. Similarly, previous research has called for examining the impact of gaming while taking genre differences into consideration.

 

In this programmatic submission (3 x Stage 2 outputs), Ballou et al. (2024) address these gaps by combining digital trace data of gamers across multiple gaming platforms (Nintendo Switch, Xbox (US only), Steam, and mobile systems (iOS and Android)) with psychological surveys measuring the gamers’ basic psychological needs, sleep quality, and subjective wellbeing over a three-month period. Participants will complete 30 daily surveys (US only) and six bi-weekly panel surveys.

 

The combination of behavioral trace data and psychological self-reports offers a rare and comprehensive look at how gaming influences different important aspects of wellbeing. This work is ambitious and addresses scientifically and socially important questions on the impact of gaming.

 

The manuscript underwent one round of in-depth review, where three reviewers with a combination of methodological and domain expertise gave generally positive feedback on the manuscript, providing directions to further strengthen the research. The authors – as judged by the recommender – thoroughly addressed the reviewer comments and have worked to further strengthen the rigour of the manuscript. A further revision round was issued by the recommender to address a minor issue with one hypothesis and other small linguistic edits.

 

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).

 

 

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. Ballou, N., Hakman, T., Földes, T., Vuorre, M., Magnusson, K., & Przybylski, A. K. (2024). Psychological Wellbeing, Sleep, and Video Gaming: Analyses of Comprehensive Digital Traces. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/mvngt

Decision-making based on limited information is a common occurrence. Whether it is the possibility of a cheaper product elsewhere or the unknown qualifications of election candidates, people are regularly forced to make a decision under ignorance or uncertainty. In such situations, information about certain events is unavailable or too costly to acquire and people rely on subjective probability allocation to guide decision-making processes. This allocation seems to result in what is known as ignorance priors, i.e., decision-makers assigning equal probabilities to each possible outcome within a given set. How events are grouped or partitioned is often subjective and may influence probability judgments and subsequent decisions. In such cases, the way the choices within a choice set are presented may shape the perceived likelihood of different outcomes. Understanding the impact of partitioning on probability estimation is crucial for both psychological and economic theories of judgment and decision-making.

In the current work, Ding and Feldman (2025) conducted a replication study of one of the foundational works on the topic: Fox and Rottenstreich (2003). In the original work, the authors provided exploratory evidence indicating that the framing of a situation affects the way individuals perceive probabilities of possible outcomes. They showed that people assigned uniform probabilities to sets of events described in a problem, such that the way the events are described partly determined people’s partitioning of those events and evaluations of the probabilities of the possible outcomes. Additionally, this partitioned framing affected judgments both under conditions of ignorance (where individuals have no information and rely solely on uniform probability assignments) and uncertainty (where individuals have some information but still rely on heuristics influenced by partitioning). This suggests that priors resulting from the inference of available evidence are sometimes partly contaminated by partitioning bias, affecting both uninformed and partially informed decision-making processes. As a consequence, the partitioning of events into different subsets might lead to varying evaluations of a single situation, resulting in inconsistencies and poorly calibrated probability assessments.

Ding and Feldman (2025) conducted a replication work on Studies 1a, 1b, 3, and 4 from Fox and Rottenstreich (2003). Their close replication relies on original data (US participants, Prolific, N=603) with a large statistical power (>95%). The replication aimed to assess whether the partitioned framing affects prior formation under ignorance (Studies 1a, 1b, and 4) and uncertainty (Study 3). The authors also proposed an extension examining estimations of complementary events contrasting estimations of the probabilities of the events happening versus the probabilities of the events not happening.

Overall, the authors successfully replicated the original study based on their pre-registered evaluation criteria, finding support for partition dependence for most scenarios under scrutiny, yet with weaker effect sizes than the original studies. Out of the eleven Cohen’s h estimated by the replication study, one is consistent with the original study’s estimate (i.e., the original point estimate lies within the confidence interval of the replication), seven go in the same direction but are smaller (i.e., same sign for the estimated effect but the original point estimate is outside the CI of the replication), and two are not statistically different from zero (i.e., the CI of the replication includes zero).  

This Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review by two expert reviewers and a second round of review by the recommender. After the revisions, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria and therefore 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.

 

 

 

 

1. Ding, K. & Feldman, G. (2025). Revisiting Partition Priming in judgment under uncertainty:
Replication and extension Registered Report of Fox and Rottenstreich (2003) [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/xdpkt

 

2. Fox, C. R. & Rottenstreich, Y. (2003). Partition priming in judgment under uncertainty. Psychological Science, 14, 195-200. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.02431