The cardinality principle (CP) is a key concept in numerical cognition, which children typically acquire by the age of five. This is the understanding that each number in a counted sequence refers to a specific set of items, and that the final number represents the total size of the set. Here, Ivanova and colleagues (2024) propose an experiment to study the changes in neural activity that accompany the acquisition of this concept, focusing on activity within the parietal lobes as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

 

Typically-developing children aged from 2 years 9 months to 4 years 9 months will be assessed for their ability to give a specific number of balls from a pile: those who can give five or more correctly will be classified as CP-knowers, and those who can only give lower set sizes will be classified as subset-knowers. All children will then perform an auditory number word adaptation task while undergoing fNIRS. The adaptation task involves hearing the number word ‘two’ repeated, interspersed with deviant number words (‘four’ or ‘eight’) or a non-number word (‘rin’). The experimental hypotheses are that left parietal activations and bilateral parietal functional connectivity will be differentially greater for number than non-number deviants amongst CP-knowers than amongst subset-knowers. Each hypothesis will be tested by sequential Bayes factor analysis, with a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 46 participants per group, providing high sensitivity to detect a smallest effect size of d = .35. This study aims to provide insights into the neural underpinnings of the CP, informing theoretical models of symbolic knowledge acquisition.

The study plan was refined over four rounds of review, with input from two external reviewers, after which the recommender judged that the Stage 1 manuscript met the criteria for in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 4. At least some of the data/evidence that will be used to answer the research question already exists and is accessible in principle to the authors (e.g. residing in a public database or with a colleague) but the authors certify that they have not yet accessed any part of that data/evidence.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly Journals:
 

• Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Brain and Neuroscience Advances
• Cortex
• Imaging Neuroscience
• In&Vertebrates
• NeuroImage: Reports
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica

 

 

Ivanova, E., Joanisse, M., Ansari, D., & Soltanlou, M. (2024). The origin of symbolic numerical knowledge in early development – an fNIRS Registered Report. In principle acceptance of Version 7 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/gzpk5

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

 

When we familiarise with new faces over repeated exposures, it is generally in situations that have meaning for us. Seeing a face more often tends to go along with learning more about the person, and their likely contexts and actions. In this Registered Report, Noad and Andrews (2024) tested whether meaningful context during exposure improves the consolidation of faces into long-term memory. Participants were shown video clips from the TV series Life on Mars, either in their original chronological sequence, which provides meaningful context, or in a scrambled sequence. It was expected that the original sequence would provide a better conceptual understanding, and this was confirmed by free recall and structured question tests. Face recognition memory was tested with images of the actor from the original clips (‘in show’) and the same actor from another show (‘out-of-show’), to test whether memory was modulated by the similarity of appearance to that at encoding. Face recognition was tested immediately after exposure and after four weeks, to allow time for consolidation. As expected, recognition memory was better for participants in the meaningful context condition, and for in-show faces. However, meaningful context did not lead to less forgetting of the faces at the follow up test, even for in-show faces, which did not support the original predictions. An exploratory analysis found that a metric of overlap between pairs of participants’ conceptual understanding was related to overlap in the set of faces they recognised. This relationship was stronger after four weeks, which suggests increased interaction of conceptual knowledge and face recognition after consolidation.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was assessed over two rounds of review, and the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria for recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/8wp6f
 
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. Noad, K. & Andrews, T. J. (2024). The importance of conceptual knowledge when becoming familiar
with faces during naturalistic viewing [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/thgrz

Revisiting a true classic, this registered replication report addresses Kahneman and Tversky’s (1973) introduction of the representativeness heuristic. The heuristic refers to deviations of judgments from normative evaluations of the evidence when the stimulus fits to a prototype. For instance, when an individual is described by features stereotypically associated with a certain target group (e.g., a person who attends dance training several times a week and has a passion for singing and performing), likelihood judgments that the individual belongs to a target group (K-Pop artists) compared to a non-target group (e.g., accountants) are inflated. 

The impact of the original research on the field is clearly immense and long-lasting. All the better that a systematic replication attempt is being undertaken in this registered report, which addresses studies 1 through 7 of Kahneman and Tversky’s classic 1973 paper. Chan and Feldman (2024) propose a well-powered online study, in which all studies from the original article are presented to participants within-subjects. The materials are carefully constructed and closely documented in the accompanying OSF project, where in-depth information on planned data analyses is supported with a simulated dataset.  

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).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. Data collection commenced during the later part of Stage 1 peer review; however, since no substantive changes to the design were made after this point, the risk of bias due to prior data observation remains zero and the manuscript therefore qualifies for Level 6.

 

 

 

1. Chan, H. C. & Feldman, G. (2024). Representativeness heuristic in intuitive predictions: Replication Registered Report of problems reviewed in Kahneman and Tversky (1973). In principle acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/er2cq

 

2. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review, 80(4), 237–251. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034747

 

Studying eye-gaze has long been employed as a central method for understanding attentional dynamics and cognitive processes in a variety of domains. The development of affordable, mobile eye-tracking devices, such as the Pupil Neon, promises new opportunities to extend this research beyond the contexts in which traditional eye-trackers have been available. But how good are such novel devices at detecting variables relevant for the study of eye movements and pupil dilations?

 

Foucher, Krug and Sauter (2024) propose an independent evaluation of the Pupil Neon eye-tracker using the Ehinger et al. (2019) test battery, comparing its performance with a traditional EyeLink 1000 Plus device. In an empirical study, participants will be asked to perform a wide variety of tasks while eye movements and pupil dilations are tracked using both devices. Results on the strengths and weaknesses, as well as potential use cases of the Pupil Neon will be informative for subsequent eye-tracking research. 

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).

 

 

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. Ehinger, B. V., Groß, K., Ibs, I., and König, P. (2019). A New Comprehensive Eye-Tracking Test Battery Concurrently Evaluating the Pupil Labs Glasses and the Eyelink 1000. PeerJ, 7, e7086. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7086

2. Foucher, V., Krug, A., and Sauter, M. (2024). Independent Comparative Evaluation of the Pupil Neon - A New Mobile Eye-tracker. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/3kc5t