Cognitive modelling: Blessing or curse for replicability in Psychology?

心理科学目前正面临信誉危机，因为研究人员已经意识到许多有影响力的心理学研究无法被复制。对复制失败的一个潜在解释是，心理学理论往往不够明确。作为对抗薄弱理论的对策，有人建议心理学研究应该更广泛地使用正式的认知模型来产生更精确的预测。然而，它从来没有实证调查，如果认知建模分析实际上有利于可复制性。鉴于认知模型分析需要大量的任意分析决策，有可能认知模型实际上对心理学发现的可复制性起反作用。在我们的提案中，我们旨在通过三个范例研究来探讨基于贝叶斯脑理论的认知模型的可复制性。首先，我们将调查原始研究作者使用原始数据集进行分析的可重复性。其次，我们将通过系统地评估各种理论等效分析决策对结果的影响来检查认知建模分析的稳健性。最后，当我们对原始实验进行精确的复制研究时，我们将测试是否获得与原始研究报告相同的结果。

Psychological science is currently facing a crisis of credibility because researchers have realized that numerous influential psychological studies cannot be replicated. A potential explanation for replication failures is that psychological theories are often underspecified. As a countermeasure against weak theories, it has bees been recommended that psychological studies should make more wide-spread use of formal cognitive modelling to generate more precise predictions. However, it has never been empirically investigated if cognitive modelling analysis is in fact beneficial for replicability. Given the large number of arbitrary analysis decisions required for cognitive modelling analyses, there is the possibility that cognitive modelling is in fact counterproductive for replicability of psychological findings. In our proposal, we aim to investigate the replicability of cognitive models based on Bayesian Brain Theory in three exemplary studies. First, we will investigate the reproducibility of the analyses conducted by the authors of the original studies using the original data sets. Second, we will examine the robustness of cognitive modelling analyses by systematically assessing the impact of a variety of theoretically equivalent analysis decisions onto the results. Finally, we will test if we obtain equivalent results as reported in the original studies when we perform exact replication studies of the original experiments.