Science or Art? How Aesthetic Standards Grease the Way Through the Publication Bottleneck but Undermine Science

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 562-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Giner-Sorolla
Keyword(s):  
Information Sharing ◽  
False Positive ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Journal Publication ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
Methodological Rigor ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Positive Results

The current crisis in psychological research involves issues of fraud, replication, publication bias, and false positive results. I argue that this crisis follows the failure of widely adopted solutions to psychology’s similar crisis of the 1970s. The untouched root cause is an information-economic one: Too many studies divided by too few publication outlets equals a bottleneck. Articles cannot pass through just by showing theoretical meaning and methodological rigor; their results must appear to support the hypothesis perfectly. Consequently, psychologists must master the art of presenting perfect-looking results just to survive in the profession. This favors aesthetic criteria of presentation in a way that harms science’s search for truth. Shallow standards of statistical perfection distort analyses and undermine the accuracy of cumulative data; narrative expectations encourage dishonesty about the relationship between results and hypotheses; criteria of novelty suppress replication attempts. Concerns about truth in research are emerging in other sciences and may eventually descend on our heads in the form of difficult and insensitive regulations. I suggest a more palatable solution: to open the bottleneck, putting structures in place to reward broader forms of information sharing beyond the exquisite art of present-day journal publication.

scholarly journals Degrees of freedom in planning, running, analyzing, and reporting psychological studies A checklist to avoid p-hacking

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelte M. Wicherts ◽  
Coosje Lisabet Sterre Veldkamp ◽  
Hilde Augusteijn ◽  
Marjan Bakker ◽  
Robbie Cornelis Maria van Aert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Effect Size ◽  
False Positive ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
Size Estimates ◽  
Extensive List ◽  
Psychological Studies

The designing, collecting, analyzing, and reporting of psychological studies entail many choices that are often arbitrary. The opportunistic use of these so-called researcher degrees of freedom aimed at obtaining statistically significant results is problematic because it enhances the chances of false positive results and may inflate effect size estimates. In this review article, we present an extensive list of 34 degrees of freedom that researchers have in formulating hypotheses, and in designing, running, analyzing, and reporting of psychological research. The list can be used in research methods education, and as a checklist to assess the quality of preregistrations and to determine the potential for bias due to (arbitrary) choices in unregistered studies.

Radiation Damage, Contrast and Statistics in High Resolution Biological Electron Microscopy

1970 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 260-261
Author(s):  
Robert M. Glaeser
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Particle Flux ◽  
Unit Area ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Resolution Image ◽  
High Resolution Image ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Counting Statistics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Picture Element

It is well known that a large flux of electrons must pass through a specimen in order to obtain a high resolution image while a smaller particle flux is satisfactory for a low resolution image. The minimum particle flux that is required depends upon the contrast in the image and the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio at which the data are considered acceptable. For a given S/N associated with statistical fluxtuations, the relationship between contrast and “counting statistics” is s131_eqn1, where C = contrast; r2 is the area of a picture element corresponding to the resolution, r; N is the number of electrons incident per unit area of the specimen; f is the fraction of electrons that contribute to formation of the image, relative to the total number of electrons incident upon the object.

Critical Evaluation of Impedance Phlebography for the Diagnosis of Deep Vein Thrombosis

1974 ◽  
Vol 31 (02) ◽  
pp. 273-278
Author(s):  
Kenneth K Wu ◽  
John C Hoak ◽  
Robert W Barnes ◽  
Stuart L Frankel
Keyword(s):  
Deep Vein Thrombosis ◽  
False Positive ◽  
False Negative ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Original Method ◽  
Vein Thrombosis ◽  
Negative Results ◽  
False Negative Results ◽  
Deep Vein ◽  
Positive Results

SummaryIn order to evaluate its daily variability and reliability, impedance phlebography was performed daily or on alternate days on 61 patients with deep vein thrombosis, of whom 47 also had 125I-fibrinogen uptake tests and 22 had radiographic venography. The results showed that impedance phlebography was highly variable and poorly reliable. False positive results were noted in 8 limbs (18%) and false negative results in 3 limbs (7%). Despite its being simple, rapid and noninvasive, its clinical usefulness is doubtful when performed according to the original method.

Considering Others’ Mental States Causally Increases Feelings of Social Bonding and Information Sharing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Baek ◽  
Diana Tamir ◽  
Emily B. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Bonding ◽  
Health News ◽  
Brain Behavior ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Share Information ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Mentalizing System

Information sharing is a ubiquitous social behavior. What causes people to share? Mentalizing, or considering the mental states of other people, has been theorized to play a central role in information sharing, with higher activity in the brain’s mentalizing system associated with increased likelihood to share information. In line with this theory, we present novel evidence that mentalizing causally increases information sharing. In three pre-registered studies (n = 400, 840, and 3500 participants), participants who were instructed to consider the mental states of potential information receivers indicated higher likelihood to share health news compared to a control condition where they were asked to reflect on the content of the article. Certain kinds of mentalizing were particularly effective; in particular, considering receivers’ emotional and positive mental states, led to the greatest increase in likelihood to share. The relationship between mentalizing and sharing was mediated by feelings of closeness with potential receivers. Mentalizing increased feelings of connectedness to potential receivers, and in turn, increased likelihood of information sharing. Considering receivers’ emotional, positive, and inward-focused mental states was most effective at driving participants to feel closer with potential receivers and increase sharing. Data provide evidence for a causal relationship between mentalizing and information sharing and provide insight about the mechanism linking mentalizing and sharing. Taken together, these results advance theories of information sharing and shed light on previously observed brain-behavior relationships.

PET/CT WITH 68GA-PSMA-11 IN DETECTION OF PRIMARY TUMOR AND RECURRENCE OF PROSTATE CANCER

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 799-804
Author(s):  
Darya Ryzhkova ◽  
M. Poyda
Keyword(s):  
Prostate Cancer ◽  
Primary Tumor ◽  
Biochemical Recurrence ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Negative Results ◽  
Primary Prostate Cancer ◽  
Pet Ct ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
T Category

Purpose: To study the diagnostic value of PET-CT with 68Ga-PSMA-11 in the diagnosis of a primary prostate cancer, preoperative staging, and the detection of recurrence of prostate cancer (PCa). Methods: 28 patients aged 64.7 ± 8.74 years were included. 10 patients primary prostate cancer, and 18 patients with biochemical recurrence of the disease after radical treatment were examined. All patients underwent PET-CT with 68Ga-PSMA-11 according the whole body protocol. Interpretation of images was performed visually and quantitatively by calculation of SUL max. Results: High focal or diffuse 68Ga-PSMA-11 uptake was found in prostate parenchyma in patients with primary prostate cancer. Additionally metastases in regional lymph nodes were diagnosed in 4 patients and bone metastases were found in one patient. The correlation between 68Ga-PSMA-11 uptake level and Gleason index in the primary tumor (R Spearmen = 0.25, p = 0.57) was not observed. PET-positive results were obtained in 14 patients and PET-negative results in 4 patients with biochemical recurrence of PCa. The relationship between the frequency of PET-positive results and Gleason index was not revealed (R Spearmen = 0.2, p = 0.39). We found a weak but significant correlation between the frequency of PET-positive results and the prostate tumor stage according to the T category (R Spearmen = 0.49, p = 0.049). In patients with low values of PSA (less than 1.0 ng/ml) in 4 out of 9 cases, PET-negative results were obtained. In patients with PSA level more than 1.0 ng/ml PET-positive results were obtained in all cases. Conclusions: PET/CT with 68Ga-PSMA-11 allows to diagnose the primary prostate cancer, to establish the stage of the disease in categories N and M, and also to determine the localization and dissemination of the tumor in patients with biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer. The relationship between 68Ga-PSMA-11 uptake in primary tumor and Gleason index was not found. The probability of obtaining PET-positive results in cases of biochemical recurrence is affected by a PSA level above 1 ng/ml and a high stage of the disease according to the T category (T3-T4).

Comparison of two rapid tests for the detection of legionellaceae in water: a microbiological-immunological method and a commercial gene-probe testkit

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 403-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Frahm ◽  
U. Obst
Keyword(s):  
Monoclonal Antibodies ◽  
Conventional Method ◽  
Standard Method ◽  
False Positive ◽  
Gene Probe ◽  
Immunological Method ◽  
Probe Test ◽  
Rapid Tests ◽  
Positive Results

Two recently developed Legionella detection tests, a microbiological-immunological method based on monoclonal antibodies (carried out as a colony-blot assay) and a commercial gene-probe testkit (the EnvironAmp Legionella Kit), are compared with the standard method. The colony-blot assay is faster than the conventional method; the gene-probe test is much faster still and is the most sensitive, but in consequence is at greater risk of false-positive results.

Dehumanization and Mentalizing Animals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.J. Kasperbauer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mental State Attribution ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Phenomenal States

This chapter applies the psychological account from chapter 3 on how we rank human beings above other animals, to the particular case of using mental states to assign animals moral status. Experiments on the psychology of mental state attribution are discussed, focusing on their implications for human moral psychology. The chapter argues that attributions of phenomenal states, like emotions, drive our assignments of moral status. It also describes how this is significantly impacted by the process of dehumanization. Psychological research on anthropocentrism and using animals as food and as companions is discussed in order to illuminate the relationship between dehumanization and mental state attribution.

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