Underpowered samples, false negatives, and unconscious learning.
Underpowered samples, false negatives, and unconscious learning.
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DOI：
10.3758/s13423-015-0892-6
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发表时间：
2016-02
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Shanks DR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Vadillo MA;Konstantinidis E;Shanks DR
科学界越来越关注心理学文献中假阳性和不可靠结果的高比率，但假阴性的有害影响在很大程度上被忽视了。假阴性在研究领域尤其值得关注，在这些领域，证明没有影响是至关重要的，比如无意识或内隐处理的研究。对内隐过程的研究寻找证据，证明在某些内隐行为测量上的高于机会的表现，同时在显性意识测量上的机会水平表现（即无效结果）。一项系统回顾了73项关于上下文线索（一种流行的内隐学习范式）的研究，包括181项意识测试的统计分析，揭示了缺乏动力的研究如何导致无法拒绝错误的零假设。在报告充分信息的研究中，意识测试的meta分析效应大小为dz = 0.31 (95% CI 0.24-0.37)，表明这些实验中参与者的学习是有意识的。本文献中异常多的阳性结果不能用选择性发表来解释。相反，我们的分析表明，这些测试通常不敏感，无法检测到意识测试中的中到小但真实的影响。这些发现挑战了关于人类无意识认知程度的广泛且理论上重要的说法。
The scientific community has witnessed growing concern about the high rate of false positives and unreliable results within the psychological literature, but the harmful impact of false negatives has been largely ignored. False negatives are particularly concerning in research areas where demonstrating the absence of an effect is crucial, such as studies of unconscious or implicit processing. Research on implicit processes seeks evidence of above-chance performance on some implicit behavioral measure at the same time as chance-level performance (that is, a null result) on an explicit measure of awareness. A systematic review of 73 studies of contextual cuing, a popular implicit learning paradigm, involving 181 statistical analyses of awareness tests, reveals how underpowered studies can lead to failure to reject a false null hypothesis. Among the studies that reported sufficient information, the meta-analytic effect size across awareness tests was dz = 0.31 (95 % CI 0.24–0.37), showing that participants’ learning in these experiments was conscious. The unusually large number of positive results in this literature cannot be explained by selective publication. Instead, our analyses demonstrate that these tests are typically insensitive and underpowered to detect medium to small, but true, effects in awareness tests. These findings challenge a widespread and theoretically important claim about the extent of unconscious human cognition.