Questions tagged [methodology]
For questions about experimental and theoretical methods, procedures, and tools used while conducting research in the cognitive sciences.
290
questions
1
vote
1
answer
17
views
How are participants kept awake in total sleep deprivation studies?
I've been searching around Google Scholar (e.g., https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2009.00767.x, and https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0894-4105.21.6.787), ...
- 23
1
vote
1
answer
62
views
Response bias in physical and sexual attraction/attractiveness surveys
There are a few potential sources of response bias in surveys intended to measure attractiveness levels of individuals, especially in the context of differences in personal qualities of judges.
...
- 525
2
votes
0
answers
26
views
Question about risk of bias tools
I am currently conducting a systematic narrative review for publication and I need to settle on a risk of bias tool. It is a systematic review on mechanisms of change in psychotherapy and therefore I ...
- 43
0
votes
0
answers
13
views
why structural studies of the cerebellum (atrophy, segmentation, etc.) always reports LEFT and RIGHT even when laterality is absent from the study?
I have noticed that structural studies of the cerebellum, regardless of the focus of the study (neurodegenerative, autism, alcoholism, drummers) usually report left-sided and right-sided results. Even ...
0
votes
0
answers
10
views
Have any theorists discussed an inherent difficulty in objectively characterizing the effect of a drug?
It seems like many methods for describing the effect of a drug tend to homogenize experience - questionnaires, metrics, and statistical rankings sometimes imply that universally and unilaterally ...
- 285
3
votes
1
answer
88
views
10-BFI test score compiling
I am a physicist and I am doing a survey about musical genre preferences and correlation with a field of study.
I want to interpret the results from this test
I don't know how to interpret the legend,...
- 31
3
votes
0
answers
16
views
Self-report measures always correlate? Research legends or the truest truth
Once upon a time a couple years B.C. (BC stands for before coronavirus), when I was a student, I asked my advisor about using two questionnaires in my research. One was some emotional intelligence ...
- 465
2
votes
1
answer
130
views
How to evaluate the convergence of a staircase?
I have a 2AFC staircase, with transformed up and down method (2up 1 down) or (2down 1 up), with equal step size (at the beginning there are higher step sizes, at the end there are the lower value).
...
- 21
2
votes
0
answers
28
views
New methods of treatment of psychological trauma?
Classical methods of psychological treatment of trauma help many people, but there is always a percentage of the patients those are can’t be healed with classical methods like Drug interventions, ...
- 21
2
votes
0
answers
54
views
Reducing self-selection bias by controlling for motivation to fill in the survey
The self-selection bias refers to the overrepresentation of people willing to participate in research among studies' participants. The bias could be particularly relevant in surveys relevant to ...
- 305
3
votes
1
answer
74
views
What work has been done studying methodological reforms in psychology after the replication crisis?
Can anyone point me to academic work that systematically studies how standards and methods have changed in psychology as a response to the replication crisis? Thanks.
2
votes
2
answers
59
views
Are there methods of evaluating the effects of psychoactive drugs that use free-form verbal reports?
If one wished to study the effects of a psychoactive drug such as LSD, what strikes me as a natural primary starting point would be to ask participants what they actually experienced. For example, ...
- 285
0
votes
0
answers
161
views
How to determine the sample size for a Confirmatory Factor Analysis CFA
I'm in the process of developing a scale. Overall, my question is how do I determine how many participants to include in my sample for the first Confirmatory Factor Analysis procedure? More ...
- 655
4
votes
0
answers
56
views
Does the wording of official ethnicity questions influence perceptions in the longer term?
It is well known that the sequence in which questions are asked in a survey can affect answers as earlier questions can influence the frame of mind in which a respondent answers a subsequent question. ...
- 151
3
votes
1
answer
43
views
Are dedicated response boxes really better in precision than regular keyboards?
There are various (very pricey) commercial response boxes or pads (perhaps most notably Cedrus) that purportedly offer higher precision than regular keyboards. (Note that my question focuses on ...
- 135
2
votes
1
answer
137
views
Slope of psychometric function too steep?
I am in a project where we are preparing a visual decision making experiment which requires participants to detect vertical grating in a patch of dynamic noise (the noise pattern is updated on every ...
- 21
0
votes
1
answer
46
views
In an experiment with animated stimuli, should I accept answers during Animation Time and count it into the Response Time?
In an experimental task where the response time is an important variable to compare two groups with different conditions, and there are animated stimuli (movement), should the response be accepted ...
- 41
2
votes
1
answer
95
views
How to measure confidence in non-binary (e.g. ordinal) choice tasks?
In metacognition literature, why is confidence, regardless of scale (Likert-type or continuous) and definition (e.g. decision confidence as a subjective probability of a decision being correct), ...
- 23
3
votes
0
answers
47
views
Can the administration of self-report measures of craving prompt participants with addiction to experience craving during the experiment?
My research focuses on measuring the neural correlates (through resting-state EEG) pre-post an improvisational music therapy session (MT sessions) in clients with substance misuse.
One of my variable ...
- 1,514
1
vote
0
answers
26
views
Can you prove a psychological theory on a one-person research design?
Famous psychologists have proven their theories on a few subjects (really small sample sizes, like n = 3). Yet, now, we are taught that to prove any psychological theory right, we need to gather data ...
- 465
1
vote
1
answer
282
views
How to determine nerve conduction velocity?
Can anyone suggest good sources or papers to understand about experimental setup and procedure for measuring nerve conduction velocity for various types of neurons?
I wish to learn how such ...
- 11
7
votes
6
answers
588
views
Which function to use for fitting learning curves?
Background
I am fitting learning curves for cochlear implant (CI) users. These folks get a CI, and then need to start learning to understand speech again. They keep on improving for years. Along the ...
- 20.3k
2
votes
3
answers
122
views
What statistical tests should be performed to test effect of trials on response times where each subject has different number of data points?
I am running a behavioral experiment where a number of subjects (=20 in my case) perform a simple cognitive task. The experiment consists of a fixed number of trials (say, 40 in my case). During each ...
- 141
2
votes
0
answers
31
views
Is there a term for a situation when questions in an anonymous survey may alienate the answers of the survey?
A friend was complaining to me the other day about a anonymous survey that they started to answer online which made them feel as if the survey was making negative presumptions about them which led to ...
- 234
7
votes
2
answers
301
views
Is there evidence to support the Dunning-Kruger effect?
The well known Dunning-Kruger effect is oft cited as a general explanation for why people with limited expertise overestimate their abilities. Other than the initial research that described this ...
- 171
2
votes
0
answers
33
views
How exactly should the items in the MEC-SPQ be rotated?
citing from the usage instructions of https://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/frames/MECFull.pdf
"The MEC-SPQ was designed for immediate assignment after media
exposure. Starting with ...
- 21
0
votes
0
answers
58
views
Whole brain death diagnosis and false positive
In view of the increasing need for organ transplants( possibly because of the greater ability of the surgeons and physicians to both execute the transplant, prevent a rejection, and/or diagnose the ...
0
votes
1
answer
42
views
Principles of grouping neurons
This is an overview question. I wonder which principles of grouping neurons into higher units are there, and which principles I have overseen.
neurotransmitter systems: all neurons that release or ...
2
votes
0
answers
43
views
Psychological Diagnostic Test
Can a person sway the results of their Psychiatric diagnosis test? Say a person has a mental illness that is more serious that they want to accept, if they know enough about Psychology, can they gear ...
- 21
5
votes
1
answer
119
views
Terror management theory: Is this a valid conclusion based on the conducted experiment?
I am currently reading the book ‘The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life’. I have to say that I am a bit skeptical about many of the statements posed, and I’m trying to identify why that is,...
- 103
6
votes
0
answers
2k
views
Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment with women
In the (in)famous experiment by psychologist Zimbardo at Stanford, also called the Stanford Prison Experiment, my understanding is that only males were selected. Is there any other analogous ...
- 161
2
votes
1
answer
49
views
How can I determine which of Brainwave is dominant as one state by EEG data?
I am a student working on EEGs.
I have a EEG data of Brainwave in 4 emotional states, namely anger, sorrow, joy and pleasure. Is there any method for determining the difference between these emotional ...
- 21
1
vote
1
answer
76
views
How can we eliminate the effect of psychiatric medication on neuropsychological research with schizophrenic patients?
It is delicate to conduct studies with schizophrenic patients, considering that the results may be altered by the medication factor. What strategies should be used to counteract this effect?
- 61
2
votes
0
answers
71
views
Can some one operate 15 points lower during some part of the day and then return to normal?
Few days back I took an IQ test (online mensa norway) and found my IQ score to be 85. I actually had my IQ professionally tested 16 months ago by a psychologist when I was 18, and found out that I am ...
- 21
3
votes
1
answer
58
views
Correlation used as explanatory device in ''The neuroscience of Intelligence'
I am currently reading Dr. Richard Haier's book The Neuroscience of Intelligence. I have a base knowledge of statistics, but I am confused about the following extract from page 80 (chapter 2.4):
...
- 33
3
votes
0
answers
43
views
How can one detect ACC, PCC or any other medial cortical activity with MEG or EEG if it's inside the brain?
Been reading some research involving various brain imaging techniques and it's not my strong point. Really, if the electrodes or SQUIDS measure surface activity, how does one measure what's going on ...
3
votes
1
answer
47
views
Excluding psychometry and interview methods, is there any physical or molecular method that can confirm mild autism?
ASD is a set of very much heterogeneous symptoms with some common characteristics like lack of eye contact, lack of social guesswork, difficulty in learning unwritten social norms or conventions, ...
- 462
0
votes
1
answer
37
views
Methods to find patterns or correlations in MEA spike trains
I am looking for methods currently used to analyze micro-electrode arrays spike trains and figure out patterns, as repeated sequences of activation or spacial correlations.
I know about ISI ...
- 53
1
vote
1
answer
55
views
How to determine which scale to use: Nominal vs Interval?
I am currently working on immersion and how it can be quantified. One of the problems I have run into is how to determine which scale to use?
I have performed a literature review but have not ...
- 11
3
votes
2
answers
237
views
Is there a list of large-scale, free datasets with psychological variables?
Psychologists are not using large, existing, free data to its potential. We don't know what exists, what it contains, or how to use it without a huge investment. Secondary analysis of large, open ...
- 1,498
2
votes
1
answer
55
views
May somebody use oddball paradigm solely for psychophysical studies?
I'm an undergraduate linguistics student with a strong interest in cognitive psychology of visual attention. Nowadays, I'm studying on an undergraduate research project in which I'm planning to use ...
2
votes
2
answers
76
views
Books on Statistics in R for behavioral data analysis
Are there any statistics books geared towards teaching behavioral data analysis especially in psycholinguistics?
- 21
3
votes
2
answers
111
views
Why is deltaE not used as a measure of error?
I've recently read a few articles pertaining to visual memory. Most of them (e.g. Bays et al., 2009 use the continuous color recall task where they ask participants to recall the color of an object by ...
- 31
3
votes
2
answers
338
views
correction for multiple comparison over many ROIs
I would like to know how to correct a p value of a stiatistic when the same test was run over multiple regions of interest. The modality is MEG.
So, I have 4 Regions Of Interests, and I ran the same ...
- 31
3
votes
0
answers
221
views
Does anyone have R code for analyzing skin conductance data?
Similar question here Open-source software for analyzing Electrodermal activity
But with no R code answers provided, and the online EDA explorer appears to be unavailable now.
I am looking for code ...
- 31
1
vote
1
answer
231
views
What time range between 2 measures for test-retest reliability?
How much time between 2 measurements is needed (at least / at most) to be called test-retest reliability?
Concrete casus:
I am planning a meta-analysis on reliability of various loneliness scales. We ...
- 11
1
vote
1
answer
20
views
What speaker is commonly used for low-latency audio stimulation
We need to purchase a new speaker for audio ERP study, so the sound should be played in lowest possible latency with lowest possible jitter. I have seen quite a few suggestion on the OS/driver/sound ...
- 245
1
vote
0
answers
83
views
Is there a specified way to shorten the number of questions in an instrument/questionnaire?
If you have found a fitting instrument that measures your interest and has been validated but is a bit too long, what can you do to shorten it?
Edit:
How do you reduce the number of questions ...
- 11
2
votes
1
answer
83
views
How to control subject's response bias in 2-interval force choice task
I am using a two-interval force choice (2IFC) task to estimate detection threshold and choose an appropriate signal level for my following experiment, by estimating sensitivity ($d'$) for each signal ...
- 245
3
votes
1
answer
54
views
Fit a psychometric function when the maximum is not 100% (not because of lapse)
I found that currently the form of psychometric function assumes that the proportion correct lies between 0.5-1 given the range of stimulus level, but how to fit a psychometric function when the ...
- 245