Tag Archives: Priming

When Exact Replications Are Too Exact: The Lucky-Bounce-Test for Pairs of Exact Replication Studies

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Imagine an NBA player has an 80% chance to make one free throw. What is the chance that he makes both free throws? The correct answer is 64% (80% * 80%).

Now consider the possibility that it is possible to distinguish between two types of free throws. Some free throws are good; they don’t touch the rim and make a swishing sound when they go through the net (all net). The other free throws bounce of the rim and go in (rattling in).

What is the probability that an NBA player with an 80% free throw percentage makes a free throw that is all net or rattles in? It is more likely that an NBA player with an 80% free throw average makes a perfect free throw because a free throw that rattles in could easily have bounded the wrong way, which would lower the free throw percentage. To achieve an 80% free throw percentage, most free throws have to be close to perfect.

Let’s say the probability of hitting the rim and going in is 30%. With an 80% free throw average, this means that the majority of free throws are in the close-to-perfect category (20% misses, 30% rattle-in, 50% close-to-perfect).

What does this have to do with science? A lot!

The reason is that the outcome of a scientific study is a bit like throwing free throws. One factor that contributes to a successful study is skill (making correct predictions, avoiding experimenter errors, and conducting studies with high statistical power). However, another factor is random (a lucky or unlucky bounce).

The concept of statistical power is similar to an NBA players’ free throw percentage. A researcher who conducts studies with 80% statistical power is going to have an 80% success rate (that is, if all predictions are correct). In the remaining 20% of studies, a study will not produce a statistically significant result, which is equivalent to missing a free throw and not getting a point.

Many years ago, Jacob Cohen observed that researchers often conduct studies with relatively low power to produce a statistically significant result. Let’s just assume right now that a researcher conducts studies with 60% power. This means, researchers would be like NBA players with a 60% free-throw average.

Now imagine that researchers have to demonstrate an effect not only once, but also a second time in an exact replication study. That is researchers have to make two free throws in a row. With 60% power, the probability to get two significant results in a row is only 36% (60% * 60%). Moreover, many of the freethrows that are made rattle in rather than being all net. The percentages are about 40% misses, 30% rattling in and 30% all net.

One major difference between NBA players and scientists is that NBA players have to demonstrate their abilities in front of large crowds and TV cameras, whereas scientists conduct their studies in private.

Imagine an NBA player could just go into a private room, throw two free throws and then report back how many free throws he made and the outcome of these free throws determine who wins game 7 in the playoff finals. Would you trust the player to tell the truth?

If you would not trust the NBA player, why would you trust scientists to report failed studies? You should not.

It can be demonstrated statistically that scientists are reporting more successes than the power of their studies would justify (Sterling et al., 1995; Schimmack, 2012). Amongst scientists this fact is well known, but the general public may not fully appreciate the fact that a pair of exact replication studies with significant results is often just a selection of studies that included failed studies that were not reported.

Fortunately, it is possible to use statistics to examine whether the results of a pair of studies are likely to be honest or whether failed studies were excluded. The reason is that an amateur is not only more likely to miss a free throw. An amateur is also less likely to make a perfect free throw.

Based on the theory of statistical power developed by Nyman and Pearson and popularized by Jacob Cohen, it is possible to make predictions about the relative frequency of p-values in the non-significant (failure), just significant (rattling in), and highly significant (all net) ranges.

As for made-free-throws, the distinction between lucky and clear successes is somewhat arbitrary because power is continuous. A study with a p-value of .0499 is very lucky because p = .501 would have been not significant (rattled in after three bounces on the rim). A study with p = .000001 is a clear success. Lower p-values are better, but where to draw the line?

As it turns out, Jacob Cohen’s recommendation to conduct studies with 80% power provides a useful criterion to distinguish lucky outcomes and clear successes.

Imagine a scientist conducts studies with 80% power. The distribution of observed test-statistics (e.g. z-scores) shows that this researcher has a 20% chance to get a non-significant result, a 30% chance to get a lucky significant result (p-value between .050 and .005), and a 50% chance to get a clear significant result (p < .005). If the 20% failed studies are hidden, the percentage of results that rattled in versus studies with all-net results are 37 vs. 63%. However, if true power is just 20% (an amateur), 80% of studies fail, 15% rattle in, and 5% are clear successes. If the 80% failed studies are hidden, only 25% of the successful studies are all-net and 75% rattle in.

One problem with using this test to draw conclusions about the outcome of a pair of exact replication studies is that true power is unknown. To avoid this problem, it is possible to compute the maximum probability of a rattling-in result. As it turns out, the optimal true power to maximize the percentage of lucky outcomes is 66% power. With true power of 66%, one would expect 34% misses (p > .05), 32% lucky successes (.050 < p < .005), and 34% clear successes (p < .005).

LuckyBounceTest

For a pair of exact replication studies, this means that there is only a 10% chance (32% * 32%) to get two rattle-in successes in a row. In contrast, there is a 90% chance that misses were not reported or that an honest report of successful studies would have produced at least one all-net result (z > 2.8, p < .005).

Example: Unconscious Priming Influences Behavior

I used this test to examine a famous and controversial set of exact replication studies. In Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996), Dr. Bargh reported two exact replication studies (studies 2a and 2b) that showed an effect of a subtle priming manipulation on behavior. Undergraduate students were primed with words that are stereotypically associated with old age. The researchers then measured the walking speed of primed participants (n = 15) and participants in a control group (n = 15).

The two studies were not only exact replications of each other; they also produced very similar results. Most readers probably expected this outcome because similar studies should produce similar results, but this false belief ignores the influence of random factors that are not under the control of a researcher. We do not expect lotto winners to win the lottery again because it is an entirely random and unlikely event. Experiments are different because there could be a systematic effect that makes a replication more likely, but in studies with low power results should not replicate exactly because random sampling error influences results.

Study 1: t(28) = 2.86, p = .008 (two-tailed), z = 2.66, observed power = 76%
Study 2: t(28) = 2.16, p = .039 (two-tailed), z = 2.06, observed power = 54%

The median power of these two studies is 65%. However, even if median power were lower or higher, the maximum probability of obtaining two p-values in the range between .050 and .005 remains just 10%.

Although this study has been cited over 1,000 times, replication studies are rare.

One of the few published replication studies was reported by Cesario, Plaks, and Higgins (2006). Naïve readers might take the significant results in this replication study as evidence that the effect is real. However, this study produced yet another lucky success.

Study 3: t(62) = 2.41, p = .019, z = 2.35, observed power = 65%.

The chances of obtaining three lucky successes in a row is only 3% (32% *32% * 32*). Moreover, with a median power of 65% and a reported success rate of 100%, the success rate is inflated by 35%. This suggests that the true power of the reported studies is considerably lower than the observed power of 65% and that observed power is inflated because failed studies were not reported.

The R-Index corrects for inflation by subtracting the inflation rate from observed power (65% – 35%). This means the R-Index for this set of published studies is 30%.

This R-Index can be compared to several benchmarks.

An R-Index of 22% is consistent with the null-hypothesis being true and failed attempts are not reported.

An R-Index of 40% is consistent with 30% true power and all failed attempts are not reported.

It is therefore not surprising that other researchers were not able to replicate Bargh’s original results, even though they increased statistical power by using larger samples (Pashler et al. 2011, Doyen et al., 2011).

In conclusion, it is unlikely that Dr. Bargh’s original results were the only studies that they conducted. In an interview, Dr. Bargh revealed that the studies were conducted in 1990 and 1991 and that they conducted additional studies until the publication of the two studies in 1996. Dr. Bargh did not reveal how many studies they conducted over the span of 5 years and how many of these studies failed to produce significant evidence of priming. If Dr. Bargh himself conducted studies that failed, it would not be surprising that others also failed to replicate the published results. However, in a personal email, Dr. Bargh assured me that “we did not as skeptics might presume run many studies and only reported the significant ones. We ran it once, and then ran it again (exact replication) in order to make sure it was a real effect.” With a 10% probability, it is possible that Dr. Bargh was indeed lucky to get two rattling-in findings in a row. However, his aim to demonstrate the robustness of an effect by trying to show it again in a second small study is misguided. The reason is that it is highly likely that the effect will not replicate or that the first study was already a lucky finding after some failed pilot studies. Underpowered studies cannot provide strong evidence for the presence of an effect and conducting multiple underpowered studies reduces the credibility of successes because the probability of this outcome to occur even when an effect is present decreases with each study (Schimmack, 2012). Moreover, even if Bargh was lucky to get two rattling-in results in a row, others will not be so lucky and it is likely that many other researchers tried to replicate this sensational finding, but failed to do so. Thus, publishing lucky results hurts science nearly as much as the failure to report failed studies by the original author.

Dr. Bargh also failed to realize how lucky he was to obtain his results, in his response to a published failed-replication study by Doyen. Rather than acknowledging that failures of replication are to be expected, Dr. Bargh criticized the replication study on methodological grounds. There would be a simple solution to test Dr. Bargh’s hypothesis that he is a better researcher and that his results are replicable when the study is properly conducted. He should demonstrate that he can replicate the result himself.

In an interview, Tom Bartlett asked Dr. Bargh why he didn’t conduct another replication study to demonstrate that the effect is real. Dr. Bargh’s response was that “he is aware that some critics believe he’s been pulling tricks, that he has a “special touch” when it comes to priming, a comment that sounds like a compliment but isn’t. “I don’t think anyone would believe me,” he says.” The problem for Dr. Bargh is that there is no reason to believe his original results, either. Two rattling-in results alone do not constitute evidence for an effect, especially when this result could not be replicated in an independent study. NBA players have to make free-throws in front of a large audience for a free-throw to count. If Dr. Bargh wants his findings to count, he should demonstrate his famous effect in an open replication study. To avoid embarrassment, it would be necessary to increase the power of the replication study because it is highly unlikely that even Dr. Bargh can continuously produce significant results with samples of N = 30 participants. Even if the effect is real, sampling error is simply too large to demonstrate the effect consistently. Knowledge about statistical power is power. Knowledge about post-hoc power can be used to detect incredible results. Knowledge about a priori power can be used to produce credible results.

Swish!

The Test of Insufficient Variance (TIVA): A New Tool for the Detection of Questionable Research Practices

Replicability, science, , , , , , , , , ,

It has been known for decades that published results tend to be biased (Sterling, 1959). For most of the past decades this inconvenient truth has been ignored. In the past years, there have been many suggestions and initiatives to increase the replicability of reported scientific findings (Asendorpf et al., 2013). One approach is to examine published research results for evidence of questionable research practices (see Schimmack, 2014, for a discussion of existing tests). This blog post introduces a new test of bias in reported research findings, namely the Test of Insufficient Variance (TIVA).

TIVA is applicable to any set of studies that used null-hypothesis testing to conclude that empirical data provide support for an empirical relationship and reported a significance test (p-values).

Rosenthal (1978) developed a method to combine results of several independent studies by converting p-values into z-scores. This conversion uses the well-known fact that p-values correspond to the area under the curve of a normal distribution. Rosenthal did not discuss the relation between these z-scores and power analysis. Z-scores are observed scores that should follow a normal distribution around the non-centrality parameter that determines how much power a study has to produce a significant result. In the Figure, the non-centrality parameter is 2.2. This value is slightly above a z-score of 1.96, which corresponds to a two-tailed p-value of .05. A study with a non-centrality parameter of 2.2 has 60% power.  In specific studies, the observed z-scores vary as a function of random sampling error. The standardized normal distribution predicts the distribution of observed z-scores. As observed z-scores follow the standard normal distribution, the variance of an unbiased set of z-scores is 1.  The Figure on top illustrates this with the nine purple lines, which are nine randomly generated z-scores with a variance of 1.

In a real data set the variance can be greater than 1 for two reasons. First, if the nine studies are exact replication studies with different sample sizes, larger samples will have a higher non-centrality parameter than smaller samples. This variance in the true non-centrality variances adds to the variance produced by random sampling error. Second, a set of studies that are not exact replication studies can have variance greater than 1 because the true effect sizes can vary across studies. Again, the variance in true effect sizes produces variance in the true non-centrality parameters that add to the variance produced by random sampling error.  In short, the variance is 1 in exact replication studies that also hold the sample size constant. When sample sizes and true effect sizes vary, the variance in observed z-scores is greater than 1. Thus, an unbiased set of z-scores should have a minimum variance of 1.

If the variance in z-scores is less than 1, it suggests that the set of z-scores is biased. One simple reason for insufficient variance is publication bias. If power is 50% and the non-centrality parameter matches the significance criterion of 1.96, 50% of studies that were conducted would not be significant. If these studies are omitted from the set of studies, variance decreases from 1 to .36. Another reason for insufficient variance is that researchers do not report non-significant results or used questionable research practices to inflate effect size estimates. The effect is that variance in observed z-scores is restricted.  Thus, insufficient variance in observed z-scores reveals that the reported results are biased and provide an inflated estimate of effect size and replicability.

In small sets of studies, insufficient variance may be due to chance alone. It is possible to quantify how lucky a researcher was to obtain significant results with insufficient variance. This probability is a function of two parameters: (a) the ratio of the observed variance (OV) in a sample over the population variance (i.e., 1), and (b) the number of z-scores minus 1 as the degrees of freedom (k -1).

The product of these two parameters follows a chi-square distribution with k-1 degrees of freedom.

Formula 1: Chi-square = OV * (k – 1) with k-1 degrees of freedom.

Example 1:

Bem (2011) published controversial evidence that appear to demonstrate precognition. Subsequent studies failed to replicate these results (Galak et al.,, 2012) and other bias tests show evidence that the reported results are biased Schimmack (2012). For this reason, Bem’s article provides a good test case for TIVA.

Bem_p_ZThe article reported results of 10 studies with 9 z-scores being significant at p < .05 (one-tailed). The observed variance in the 10 z-scores is 0.19. Using Formula 1, the chi-square value is chi^2 (df = 9) = 1.75. Importantly, chi-square tests are usually used to test whether variance is greater than expected by chance (right tail of the distribution). The reason is that variance is not expected to be less than the variance expected by chance because it is typically assumed that a set of data is unbiased. To obtain a probability of insufficient variance, it is necessary to test the left-tail of the chi-square distribution.  The corresponding p-value for chi^2 (df = 9) = 1.75 is p = .005. Thus, there is only a 1 out of 200 probability that a random set of 10 studies would produce a variance as low as Var = .19.

This outcome cannot be attributed to publication bias because all studies were published in a single article. Thus, TIVA supports the hypothesis that the insufficient variance in Bem’s z-scores is the result of questionable research methods and that the reported effect size of d = .2 is inflated. The presence of bias does not imply that the true effect size is 0, but it does strongly suggest that the true effect size is smaller than the average effect size in a set of studies with insufficient variance.

Example 2:  

Vohs et al. (2006) published a series of studies that he results of nine experiments in which participants were reminded of money. The results appeared to show that “money brings about a self-sufficient orientation.” Francis and colleagues suggested that the reported results are too good to be true. An R-Index analysis showed an R-Index of 21, which is consistent with a model in which the null-hypothesis is true and only significant results are reported.

Because Vohs et al. (2006) conducted multiple tests in some studies, the median p-value was used for conversion into z-scores. The p-values and z-scores for the nine studies are reported in Table 2. The Figure on top of this blog illustrates the distribution of the 9 z-scores relative to the expected standard normal distribution.

Table 2

Study                    p             z          

Study 1                .026       2.23
Study 2                .050       1.96
Study 3                .046       1.99
Study 4                .039       2.06
Study 5                .021       2.99
Study 6                .040       2.06
Study 7                .026       2.23
Study 8                .023       2.28
Study 9                .006       2.73
                                                           

The variance of the 9 z-scores is .054. This is even lower than the variance in Bem’s studies. The chi^2 test shows that this variance is significantly less than expected from an unbiased set of studies, chi^2 (df = 8) = 1.12, p = .003. An unusual event like this would occur in only 1 out of 381 studies by chance alone.

In conclusion, insufficient variance in z-scores shows that it is extremely likely that the reported results overestimate the true effect size and replicability of the reported studies. This confirms earlier claims that the results in this article are too good to be true (Francis et al., 2014). However, TIVA is more powerful than the Test of Excessive Significance and can provide more conclusive evidence that questionable research practices were used to inflate effect sizes and the rate of significant results in a set of studies.

Conclusion

TIVA can be used to examine whether a set of published p-values was obtained with the help of questionable research practices. When p-values are converted into z-scores, the variance of z-scores should be greater or equal to 1. Insufficient variance suggests that questionable research practices were used to avoid publishing non-significant results; this includes simply not reporting failed studies.

At least within psychology, these questionable research practices are used frequently to compensate for low statistical power and they are not considered scientific misconduct by governing bodies of psychological science (APA, APS, SPSP). Thus, the present results do not imply scientific misconduct by Bem or Vohs, just like the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports is not illegal unless a drug is put on an anti-doping list. However, jut because a drug is not officially banned, it does not mean that the use of a drug has no negative effects on a sport and its reputation.

One limitation of TIVA is that it requires a set of studies and that variance in small sets of studies can vary considerably just by chance. Another limitation is that TIVA is not very sensitive when there is substantial heterogeneity in true non-centrality parameters. In this case, the true variance in z-scores can mask insufficient variance in random sampling error. For this reason, TIVA is best used in conjunction with other bias tests. Despite these limitations, the present examples illustrate that TIVA can be a powerful tool in the detection of questionable research practices.  Hopefully, this demonstration will lead to changes in the way researchers view questionable research practices and how the scientific community evaluates results that are statistically improbable. With rejection rates at top journals of 80% or more, one would hope that in the future editors will favor articles that report results from studies with high statistical power that obtain significant results that are caused by the predicted effect.