This article describes a systematic analysis of the relationship between empirical data and theoretical conclusions for a set of experimental psychology articles published in the journal Science between 2005-2012. When the success rate of a set of empirical studies is much higher than would be expected relative to the experiments' reported effects and sample sizes, it suggests that null finding...

Empirical replication has long been considered the final arbiter of phenomena in science, but replication is undermined when there is evidence for publication bias. Evidence for publication bias in a set of experiments can be found when the observed number of rejections of the null hypothesis exceeds the expected number of rejections. Application of this test reveals evidence of publication bia...

The octave illusion occurs when each ear receives a sequence of tones alternating by one octave, but with different frequencies in each ear. Most listeners report a high pitch in one ear alternating with a low pitch in the opposite ear. Deutsch and Roll proposed an influential suppression model of the illusion in which the pitch is determined by ear dominance, while the location of this pitch i...

Five experiments were conducted to investigate a proposal by Butler, Kang, and Roediger (2009) that congruity (or fit) between target items and processing tasks might contribute, at least partly, to the mnemonic advantages typically produced by survival processing. In their research, no significant survival advantages were found when words were preselected to be highly congruent or incongruent ...

A brief overview is presented of the key steps involved in designing a research animal experiment, with reference to resources that specifically address each topic of discussion in more detail. After an idea for a research project is conceived, a thorough review of the literature and consultation with experts in that field are pursued to refine the problem statement and to assimilate background...