Double trouble? The communication dimension of the reproducibility crisis in experimental psychology and neuroscience
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: Most discussions of the reproducibility crisis focus on its epistemic aspect: the fact that the scientific community fails to follow some norms of scientific investigation, which leads to high rates of irreproducibility via a high rate of false positive findings. The purpose of this paper is to argue that there is a heretofore underappreciated and understudied dimension to the reproducibility crisis in experimental psychology and neuroscience that may prove to be at least as important as the epistemic dimension. This is the communication dimension. The link between communication and reproducibility is immediate: independent investigators would not be able to recreate an experiment whose design or implementation were inadequately described. I exploit evidence of a replicability and reproducibility crisis in computational science, as well as research into quality of reporting to support the claim that a widespread failure to adhere to reporting standards, especially the norm of descriptive completeness, is an important contributing factor in the current reproducibility crisis in experimental psychology and neuroscience.
Author: Witold M. Hensel
Institution: University of Białystok
Language: English
Subfield: Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,750
OpenAlex ID: W3091305078