Goal: Become familiar with the key elements of the experimental research design and prepare your first experimental study plan!

• Short introduction into key concepts in experimental research:
  • Research Design. A Step-by-Step Guide with Examples
  • A Quick Guide to Experimental Design. 5 Steps & Examples

1. Lecture: lab_methods.pdf
2. Q&A Session:
   1. Describe in your own words the difference between a correlation and an experiment?
   2. Give an example of a correlational study.
   3. Provide an example of an experiment.
3. Practice Session – today you will work in groups of five to prepare your first (pre-registered) experimental study plan!
   1. Briefly describe the purpose (aim and objectives) of the study.
   2. What research questions are being answered?
   3. What hypotheses are being verified?
   4. List the independent, dependent, and confounding variables.
   5. For each variable, indicate whether it is quantitative or categorical and describe the operationalization of that variable.
   6. What is the procedure of the experiment? (devices, tasks, groups, …)
   7. A sample article from EEG research at JU with a well-described method as inspiration: Senderecka et al. - 2018 - Post-error Brain Activity Correlates With Incidental Memory for Negative Words

• Fairclough - 2009 - Fundamentals of physiological computing – A summary of the major issues related to the use of physiological measurement in HCI (psychophysiological inference, user state's representation, bio-cybernetic loop, ethics)
• Bach et al. - 2018 - Psychophysiological modeling. Current state and future directions – How to address the problem of inverse inference?
• Brouwer et al. - 2015 - Using neurophysiological signals that reflect cognitive or affective state: six recommendations to avoid common pitfails – A title says everything

• John, Loewenstein, Prelec - 2012 - Measuring the Prevalence of Questionable Research Practices With Incentives for Truth Telling – More than 2,000 scientists participated in a survey on questionable methodological practices.
• Simmons, Nelson, Simonsohn - 2011 - False-Positive Psychology – A subtitle is a good summary of the paper's topic: “Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant”
• Forstmeier, Wagenmakers, Parker - 2017 - Detecting and avoiding likely false-positive findings - a practical guide – a practical guide on “how statistical pitfalls and psychological traps lead to conclusions that are biased and unreliable, and how these mistakes can be avoided”
• Andrade - 2021 - HARKing, Cherry-Picking, P-Hacking, Fishing Expeditions, and Data Dredging (...) – a very short introduction to questionable research practices

• Spurious correlations