published by: | 13 March 2021 | news
The iScience team is happy to have group head Prof. Dr. Ulf-Dietrich Reips as panel discussant at the TeaP 2021 (Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen; Conference of Experimental Psychologists), an event by the University of Ulm:
published by: | 03 March 2021 | news
National Science Foundation (DFG) awards grant to Prof. Dr. Ulf-Dietrich Reips: A new three-year collaborative project on “Replicability of Fundamental Results on Spatial-Numerical Associations in Highly Powered Online Experiments (e-SNARC)” was awarded for a collaboration between Prof. Dr. Nuerck (University of Tübingen), Dr. Krzysztof Cipora (Loughborough University, UK) and iScience group.
Project summary: Spatial-Numerical Associations (SNAs) play a fundamental role for how humans represent numbers, and how they learn and use mathematics. Among SNAs, the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC, i.e., faster responses to small / large magnitude numbers with left / right hand respectively) effect is the hallmark, most thoroughly investigated effect. Nevertheless, despite almost three decades of research, many pivotal questions still remain unresolved. This may be partly due to the fact that several early SNARC results were obtained in small N (and probably underpowered) experiments. Because this limitation holds even for theoretically important and popular foundations of the SNARC effect, our understanding of SNAs considerably lacks in solidity of evidence and makes our common ground for further research shaky. For the presently granted project, we identify 3 fundamental questions about the SNAs and the SNARC effect, which we plan to address in highly powered large-scale online experiments: (1) automaticity – i.e., how much active semantic processing of the numerical stimuli is needed to evoke the spatial association, (2) task (in- )dependence – i.e., whether and how SNAs differ depending on the specific task we use to measure them, and (3) context (in-)dependence – i.e., whether spatial associations depend only on relative or also on absolute numerical magnitudes. For future empirical and theoretical developments it is essential to clarify these fundamental properties of the SNARC effect and provide high-quality empirical evidence, whether and under which circumstances these properties exist or not, and how large and reliable they are.
published by: | 02 March 2021 | news
Two small grants awarded for iScience: The International Office awarded two teaching grants to iScience group for seminars to be taught by international faculty jointly with Prof. Reips. Prof. Michael Birnbaum (California State University Fullerton) will co-teach “Joint course on Internet-based Data Collection and Analysis” and Dr. Aexander Merkin (Auckland
University of Technology, NZ) will co-teach “Multicultural competency and methods”.
published by: | 27 January 2021 | news
The year 2021 is off to an exciting start for the iScience group: Our paper on “Samply” has just been accepted:
Shevchenko, Y., Kuhlmann, T., & Reips, U.-D. (2021). Samply: A user-friendly smartphone app and web-based means of scheduling and sending mobile notifications for experience-sampling research. Behavior Research Methods.
Abstract
Undertaking an experience-sampling study via smartphones is complex. Scheduling and sending mobile notifications often requires the use of proprietary software that imposes limits on participants’ operating systems (whether iOS or Android) or the types of questions that can be asked via the application. We have developed an open-source platform—Samply—which overcomes these limitations. Researchers can access the entire interface via a browser, manage studies, schedule and send notifications linking to online surveys or experiments created in any Internet-based service or software, and monitor participants’ responses—all without the coding skills usually needed to program a native mobile application. Participants can download the Samply Research mobile application for free from Google Play or the App Store, join a specific study, receive notifications and web links to surveys or experiments, and track their involvement. The mobile application leverages the power of the React Native JavaScript library, which allows it to be rendered in the native code of Android and iOS mobile operating systems. We describe Samply, provide a step-by-step example of conducting an experience-sampling study, and present the results of two validation studies. Study 1 demonstrates how we improved the website’s usability for researchers. Study 2 validates the mobile application’s data recording ability by analyzing a survey’s participation rate. The application’s possible limitations and how mobile device settings might affect its reliability are discussed.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-020-01527-9
We are looking forward to the further academic year!