Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK.
Eur J Neurosci. 2019 May;49(9):1149-1156. doi: 10.1111/ejn.14278. Epub 2018 Dec 10.
Often researchers wish to mark an objective line between study plans that were specified before data acquisition and decisions that were made following data exploration. Contrary to common perception, registering study plans to an online platform prior to data collection does not by itself provide such an objective distinction, even when the registration is time-stamped. Here, we adapt a method from the field of cryptography to allow encoding of study plans and predictions within random aspects of the data acquisition process. Doing so introduces a causal link between the preregistered content and objective attributes of the acquired data, such as the timing and location of brain activations. This guarantees that the preregistered plans and predictions are indeed specified prior to data collection. Our time-locking system does not depend on any external party and can be performed entirely in-lab. We provide code for easy implementation and a detailed example from the field of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).
研究人员通常希望在数据采集之前指定的研究计划和数据探索后做出的决策之间划出一条明确的客观界限。与普遍看法相反，即使注册时间戳，在数据收集之前将研究计划预先注册到在线平台本身并不能提供这样的客观区分。在这里，我们从密码学领域中采用了一种方法，允许在数据采集过程的随机方面中对研究计划和预测进行编码。这样做在预先注册的内容和获取数据的客观属性（例如大脑激活的时间和位置）之间建立了因果关系。这保证了预先注册的计划和预测确实是在数据收集之前指定的。我们的时间锁定系统不依赖于任何外部方，并且可以完全在实验室中进行。我们提供了易于实现的代码和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）领域的详细示例。
