Publication standards in infancy research: Three ways to make Violation-of-Expectation studies more reliable

Infant Behavior & Development
Paula Rubio-Fernández

Abstract

The Violation-of-Expectation paradigm is a widespread paradigm in infancy research that relies on looking time as an index of surprise. This methodological review aims to increase the reliability of future VoE studies by proposing to standardize reporting practices in this literature. I review 15 VoE studies on false-belief reasoning, which used a variety of experimental parameters. An analysis of the distribution of p-values across experiments suggests an absence of p-hacking. However, there are potential concerns with the accuracy of their measures of infants' attention, as well as with the lack of a consensus on the parameters that should be used to set up VoE studies. I propose that (i) future VoE studies ought to report not only looking times (as a measure of attention) but also looking-away times (as an equally important measure of distraction); (ii) VoE studies must offer theoretical justification for the parameters they use, and (iii) when parameters are selected through piloting, pilot data must be reported in order to understand how parameters were selected. Future VoE studies ought to maximize the accuracy of their measures of infants' attention since the reliability of their results and the validity of their conclus...Continue Reading

Citations

Oct 9, 2019·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Xianwei MengYusuke Moriguchi
Sep 29, 2020·Journal of Cognition and Development : Official Journal of the Cognitive Development Society·Marjorie RhodesJohn Daryl Ocampo
Aug 4, 2020·Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·Koraly Pérez-EdgarVanessa LoBue

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