Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Department of Neurology, University Clinic, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Cognition. 2024 Jul;248:105781. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105781. Epub 2024 Apr 24.
Two implicit generalizations are often made from group-level studies in cognitive experimental psychology and their common statistical analysis in the general linear model: (1) Group-level phenomena are assumed to be present in every participant with variations between participants being often treated as random error in data analyses; (2) phenomena are assumed to be stable over time. In this preregistered study, we investigated the validity of these generalizations in the commonly used parity judgment task. In the proposed Ironman paradigm, the intraindividual presence and stability of three popular numerical cognition effects were tested in 10 participants on 30 days: the SNARC (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes, i.e., faster left-/right-sided responses to small/large magnitude numbers, respectively; Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux, 1993), MARC (Linguistic Markedness of Response Codes; i.e., faster left-/right-sided responses to odd/even numbers, respectively; Nuerk, Iversen, & Willmes, 2004), and Odd (i.e., faster responses to even numbers; Hines, 1990) effects. We replicated the group-level effects; however, they were reliably present in only four to five (SNARC), six (MARC) or five (Odd) of 10 participants. Fluctuations seemed unsystematic, although the SNARC effect decreased over time along with reaction times. No correlation between the SNARC and MARC effects and sleep duration, tiredness, daytime, and consumption of stimulants were detected in most participants. These results challenge the frequent generalizations from group-level phenomena to individual participants and from single sessions to typical behavior. The innovative Ironman paradigm combined with bootstrap analyses permits unique insights into the intraindividual presence and stability of cognitive phenomena.
从认知实验心理学的群体水平研究及其在一般线性模型中的常见统计分析中，通常会做出两个隐含的概括：（1）假定群体水平现象存在于每个参与者中，参与者之间的变化通常在数据分析中被视为随机误差；（2）现象假定在时间上是稳定的。在这项预先注册的研究中，我们在常用的奇偶判断任务中研究了这些概括的有效性。在提出的铁人模式中，在 30 天内对 10 名参与者进行了三个流行的数值认知效应的个体内存在和稳定性测试：SNARC（空间-数字反应代码关联，即对小/大数量的反应分别更快地出现在左侧/右侧；Dehaene、Bossini 和 Giraux，1993）、MARC（反应代码的语言标记；即对奇数/偶数的反应分别更快地出现在左侧/右侧；Nuerk、Iversen 和 Willmes，2004）和奇数（即对偶数的反应更快；Hines，1990）效应。我们复制了群体水平的效应；然而，只有四到五名（SNARC）、六名（MARC）或五名（奇数）参与者中可靠地存在这些效应。尽管 SNARC 效应随着反应时间的延长而降低，但波动似乎没有系统。在大多数参与者中，没有检测到 SNARC 和 MARC 效应与睡眠时间、疲劳、白天和兴奋剂消费之间的相关性。这些结果挑战了从群体水平现象到个体参与者以及从单次会议到典型行为的频繁概括。铁人模式与自举分析相结合，可以对认知现象的个体内存在和稳定性提供独特的见解。
