Should I test more babies? Solutions for transparent data peeking

Research with infants is often slow and time-consuming, so infant researchers face great pressure to use the available participants in an efficient way. One strategy that researchers sometimes use to optimize efficiency is data peeking (or “optional stopping”), that is, doing a preliminary analysis (whether a formal significance test or informal eyeballing) of collected data. Data peeking helps researchers decide whether to abandon or tweak a study, decide that a sample is complete, or decide to continue adding data points. Unfortunately, data peeking can have negative consequences such as increased rates of false positives (wrongly concluding that an effect is present when it is not). We argue that, with simple corrections, the benefits of data peeking can be harnessed to use participants more efficiently. We review two corrections that can be transparently reported: one can be applied at the beginning of a study to lay out a plan for data peeking, and a second can be applied after data collection has already started. These corrections are easy to implement in the current framework of infancy research. The use of these corrections, together with transparent reporting, can increase the replicability of infant research.     

Does cost–benefit analysis or self‐control predict involvement in bullying behavior by male prisoners?

The main aim of this study is to assess whether lack of self-control or the perceived costs and benefits of aggression provide the better predictors of bullying behavior and victimization, and direct aggression perpetration, in a sample of 122 male British prisoners. We also assessed whether bullying was associated with height and weight. Zero-order correlations showed that perceived benefits, self-control, and perceived costs were most closely associated with perpetration of bullying, and that lack of self-control was weakly associated with victimization. Height and weight were unrelated to bullying or victimization. In a standard regression analyses, perceived benefits was the strongest predictor of bullying perpetration, with lack of self-control contributing further; all three variables made a significant contribution when direct aggression was the criterion. Mediation analysis showed that a combined cost-benefit measure partially mediated the association between self-control and both bullying and direct aggression. The findings are discussed in relation to explanations of aggression based on impulse control or a cost-benefit analysis.     

Studying sense of agency online: Can intentional binding be observed in uncontrolled online settings?

Intentional binding is often used as an implicit index of the sense of agency. However, intentional binding research has primarily been conducted in controlled lab environments. During the COVID-19 global pandemic, there has been a shift to implementing studies using online platforms and it is an open question whether the intentional binding effect can be found using an online experimental set-up and participant sample. Here, we address this question by asking online participants to complete the Libet clock version of the intentional binding task, which we make freely available to researchers as a jsPsych (De Leeuw, 2014) plugin. Intentional binding was observed in the form of later keypress estimates and earlier auditory tone estimates, when the auditory tone followed the keypress. These findings confirm that intentional binding can be assessed in online contexts. We discuss these findings in relation to the broader intentional binding literature.     

“Big” Sounds Bigger in More Widely Spoken Languages

Larger communities face more communication barriers. We propose that languages spoken by larger communities adapt and overcome these greater barriers by increasing their reliance on sound symbolism, as sound symbolism can facilitate communication. To test whether widely spoken languages are more sound symbolic, participants listened to recordings of the words big and small in widely spoken and less common languages and guessed their meanings. Accuracy was higher for words from widely spoken languages providing evidence that widely spoken languages harbor more sound symbolism. Preliminary results also suggest that widely spoken languages rely on different sound symbolic patterns than less common languages. Community size can thus shape linguistic forms and influence the tools that languages use to facilitate communication.