One of the key drivers of how organisms respond to stressful events or situations is the controllability of the stressor – the extent to which the individual has (or believes) they can control the stress-inducing event or situation. A considerable literature has explored controllability and the effects of aversive events, with the general finding that uncontrollable situations more strongly impair emotion and cognition while increasing stress responses (Maier & Seligman, 1976). In a key review, Foa et al. (1992) evaluated the effects of unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive events that caused disturbance in animals. Although it remains unclear, longevity of stress exposure may play a role in responsiveness when exposed to uncontrollable threats in humans.

 

Here, Dudziak et al. (2025) examine whether acute stress exposure impacts reactivity to a subsequent loss of control over threat. Participants (N=128) will be assigned to a stress or a no-stress group, undergoing an acute stress induction or a non-stressful control procedure, followed by a behavioural loss-of-control task. By assessing salivary cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase assays, blood pressure measurements, and self-report ratings they hypothesize that participants exposed to acute stress will show stronger biological and psychological responses to the loss of control over threat than those in the no-stress group. The authors will also test whether individual differences in childhood adversity are associated with heightened stress responses. Overall, the findings promise to shed light on the directional relationship between threat controllability and stress reactivity, and will therefore be relevant across a range of research areas in clinical psychology, biological psychology, and associated domains.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by three expert reviewers who performed in-depth and constructive evaluation across multiple rounds of revisions. The authors were responsive in amending their manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments and dedicated much effort to increasing the clarity and interpretability of their design and sampling plan. The revised manuscript was judged to meet the Stage 1 criteria and was awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/dca3g
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. Data collection began during the final round of Stage 1 peer review. Since no substantive revisions to the design or analysis were made after this review round, the risk of bias due to prior data observation remained zero, and the manuscript therefore qualified for Level 6.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:

 

 

1. Dudziak, M., Smeets, T., Vervliet, B., & Beckers, T. (2025). Impact of acute stress exposure on reactivity to loss of control over threat. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/dca3g

 

2. Foa, E. B., Zinbarg, R., & Rothbaum, B. O. (1992). Uncontrollability and unpredictability in post-traumatic stress disorder: An animal model. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 218-238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.2.218

 

3. Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. (1976). Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 105, 3-46. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.105.1.3

 

Mind-wandering broadly refers to the phenomenon by which a person's thoughts are directed towards internally generated states as opposed to being directed towards those that are task-relevant. It has been proposed that mind-wandering and cognitive control are supported by overlapping neural systems. While neuroimaging work has implicated prefrontal cortex in both mind-wandering and cognitive control, studies testing its causal role using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) have been inconclusive.

 

Here, Rasmussen and colleagues (2025) put to a strict test the question of whether the effects of prefrontal cortex tDCS on mind-wandering are mediated by dopaminergic availablility, which is known to be important for cognitive control. Using noninvasive brain stimuluation (prefrontal cortex tDCS vs sham) and a pharmacological intervention (levodopa vs. placebo), they found that contrary to some previous work, stimulation of prefrontal cortex does not alter mind-wandering. By contrast, in the absence of stimulation, increasing dopamine availability via levodopa reduced the frequency of freely moving thought. Together, these results clarify the degree to which prefrontal cortex tDCS and dopamine play a causal role in mind-wandering

 

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/ujp7e
 
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
• Brain and Neuroscience Advances
• Cortex
• Imaging Neuroscience
• NeuroImage: Reports
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica

 

 

Rasmussen, T., Dux, P. E. & Filmer, H. (2025). On the neural substrates of mind wandering and dynamic thought: A drug and brain stimulation study [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.02.620526 

 

Rhythmic changes in pain can lead to corresponding modulations of EEG amplitudes in theta, alpha, and beta bands. But the question remains open as to whether these modulations are actually tracking pain, or maybe rather saliency or stimulus intensity. The question is of some importance because a marker of pain per se could be useful for tracking felt pain without a verbal response, and could be useful in investigating interventions for treating pain (such as suggestion).  Here, Leu et al. (2025) addressed the question of whether modulations reflect saliency or else the intensity of pain, by using an oddball paradigm in which most trials are a pain stimulus of a certain intensity, and oddball trials will sometimes occur, at either a higher intensity or a lower intensity than the baseline ones. If the modulations reflected salience, the modulation at the frequency of the oddball would be similar for high and low intensity oddballs. However, if the modulations reflected pain intensity, the modulations for the low rather than high oddball condition would be lower.

 

In fact, the baseline and oddball stimulations were found to be perceived significantly differently only in the high oddball condition; and consistantly, the oddballl stimulus significantly modulated ongoing oscillations in only the high oddball condition. Thus, whether oscillations are modulated by pain intensity or salience could not be picked apart in this study. The study does however raise an important isssue, indicate how it could be addressed, and provide data relevant for clearly resolving the issue in the future.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth peer review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria for acceptance.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/qbrf2
 
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. Leu, C., Forest, S., Legrain, V., & Liberati, G. (2025). The effect of stimulus saliency on the modulation of pain-related ongoing neural oscillations: a Registered Report [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/98edq

COVID-19 has been associated with cognitive impairments, particularly in memory performance (Guo et al., 2022). Given that associative memory typically declines earlier than item memory in conditions such as mild cognitive impairment (Chen & Chang, 2016), it remains an open question whether COVID-19 differentially affects item and associative memory. Furthermore, it is unclear whether such effects are specific to verbal or non-verbal material. To investigate these questions, Weinerova et al. (2024) recruited participants via long-COVID Facebook groups and clinical settings. They reported a significant detrimental effect of COVID-19 status on long-term memory performance across tasks. However, they did not find evidence for their preregistered hypothesis of an interaction between COVID-19 status and either memory type (item vs. associative) or stimulus type (verbal vs. non-verbal).

 

In the Stage 1 report, the authors preregistered a Bayes Factor threshold of 6 as the criterion for supporting the alternative hypothesis. All planned analyses were preregistered, incorporating both frequentist methods (to replicate Guo et al., 2022) and Bayesian ANCOVA (to test the preregistered hypotheses). As data collection had been completed at the time of Stage 1 submission, we assigned a Level 3 bias control to the Stage 1 report.

 

In the Stage 2 report, the authors confirmed a general negative impact of COVID-19 on long-term memory accuracy. Using frequentist ANCOVA, they successfully replicated Guo et al. (2022)’s findings of reduced accuracy in verbal item and non-verbal associative memory among individuals with prior COVID-19 infection. However, they did not replicate the previously observed effect on reaction times. The Bayesian ANCOVA analyses did not reach the preregistered evidential threshold (BF > 6). Verbal associative memory, which was not part of the original replication attempt, also showed reduced accuracy in individuals with prior infection. In contrast, performance on non-verbal item memory tasks showed a ceiling effect, possibly due to methodological differences from Guo et al. (2022). Across all four memory tasks, the authors found robust evidence for decreased accuracy associated with COVID-19 status but no effect on reaction times.

 

Contrary to their hypotheses, models that included interactions between COVID-19 status and either memory type or stimulus type were less likely than the null model, suggesting a general, rather than specific, detrimental effect of COVID-19 on long-term memory.

 

Analyses of vaccination status yielded inconclusive results, likely due to limited sample size and uncertainty in participants' self-reports of vaccination timing relative to infection. The question of whether vaccination has protective effects on cognition remains unresolved and merits further investigation. The authors also reported tentative exploratory findings, such as a potential association between longer time since infection and slower reaction times in verbal item memory tasks. These observations require confirmation in future studies.

 

Overall, the study makes a valuable contribution by replicating prior findings and extending them to suggest a broad impairment of long-term memory associated with COVID-19.

 

The Stage 2 report was reviewed by the same three reviewers who had evaluated the Stage 1 submission. All reviewers agreed that the authors had addressed prior comments and had adhered to the preregistered methodology and analysis plan. As in the Stage 1 evaluation, we note the potential for selection bias introduced by recruiting participants via long-COVID Facebook groups. Individuals with post-infection cognitive complaints may have been more likely to volunteer, limiting generalizability to the broader SARS-CoV-2-infected population. This and other limitations are clearly acknowledged in the Discussion section of the Stage 2 manuscript. The recommender judged that the manuscript met all Stage 2 criteria for recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/tjs5u
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some data/evidence that was used to the answer the research question had been accessed by the authors prior to in-principle acceptance (e.g. downloaded or otherwise received), but the authors certify that they had not yet observed ANY part of the data/evidence.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

1. Chen, P.-C., & Chang, Y.-L. (2016, May). Associative memory and underlying brain correlates in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Neuropsychologia, 85, 216–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.03.032

 

2. Guo, P., Benito Ballesteros, A., Yeung, S. P., Liu, R., Saha, A., Curtis, L., ... Cheke, L. G. (2022b). COVCOG 2: Cognitive and memory deficits in long COVID: A second publication from the COVID and Cognition Study. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 14, 804937. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.804937

 

3. Weinerova, J., Yeung, S., Guo, P., Yau, A., Horne, C., Ghinn, M., Curtis, L., Adlard, F., Bhagat, V., Zhang, S., Kaser, M., Bozic, M., Schluppeck, D., Reid, A., Tibon, R., & Cheke, L. (2025). Changes in memory function in adults following SARS-CoV-2 infection: Findings from the Covid and Cognition online study [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 1 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/q5vu2?view_only=228165eb161d490b945ca019143ba98c

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 current study Chen et al. (2025) set out to examine how action interpretations (e.g. go vs approach) can impact individuals food-choices. This is important for cognitive bias modification approaches which aim to manipulate these actions to promote behaviour change (Iannazzo et al., 2024; Veling et al., 2021), but also theoretical accounts which suggest certain motor-responses acquire valence. Here there are two groups randomised to receive instructions to either go/no-go or approach/avoid images of candy in novel training task (Chen et al., 2019).
 
The results of the experiment suggested that despite both groups making the same responses (pressing a space bar vs not), the framing of the response as go vs approach and no-go vs avoidance influenced subsequent food-choice (i.e. responses framed as approach increased the probability of choosing approach items over avoidance items, but not go items over no-go items).
 
As the authors state, these findings cast doubt on theoretical models which suggest there are ‘hardwired’ links between specific go/approach responses and appetitive systems or specific no-go/avoidance responses and aversive systems. They also suggest these responses aren’t valenced, but acquire valence through interpretation of the action. These findings can also inform future studies into cognitive bias modification.
 
The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review by two reviewers with expertise in the relevant area, who also assessed the Stage 1 manuscript. 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/bn5xa
 
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. Chen, Z., Van Dessel, P., Serverius, J., Zhu, D. & Figner, B. (2025). Action interpretation determines the effects of go/no-go and approach/avoidance actions on food choice. Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6xhw4_v2

 

2. Chen, Z., & 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
 

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. Iannazzo, L. H., Hayden, M. J., Lawrence, N. S., Kakoschke, N., Hughes, L. K., Van Egmond, K., … Staiger, P. K. (2024). Inhibitory control training to reduce appetitive behaviour: a meta-analytic investigation of effectiveness, potential moderators, and underlying mechanisms of change. Health Psychology Review, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2024.2410018
 
5. Veling, H., Verpaalen, I. A. M., Liu, H., Mosannenzadeh, F., Becker, D., & Holland, R. W. (2021). How can food choice best be trained? Approach-avoidance versus go/no-go training. Appetite, 163, 105226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105226

 

6. Yang, Y., Qi, L., Morys, F., Wu, Q. & Chen, H. (2022). Food-Specific Inhibition Training for Food Devaluation: A Meta-Analysis. Nutrients, 14, 1363. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14071363