Ana Martinovici

To correct errors in the scientific record, researchers must dedicate time and attention to the task. However, time and attention are both extremely limited resources in science. Resource-efficient quality control that targets the scientific output most in need of correction is a crucial part of facilitating effective scientific self-correction in practice. This piece summarizes a one-day hackathon that took place during the Perspectives on Scientific Error conference in 2024. The hackathon was devoted to discussing how scientific fields such as psychology can coordinate scientific quality control work in practice in three situations: 1) for promotions and getting tenure, 2) at journals during pre- and post-publication stages, and 3) in error detection projects. These hackathon proceedings contain a summary of these three discussions, as well as a summary of topics brought up during the general discussion (see end of piece). We believe this can serve as a starting point for further discussion about how to select studies to scrutinize during pre-, and post-publication stages within and across different fields.Update November 2026: we have uploaded a version 2 of this preprint, now including an author note stating that: This preprint was submitted to the Journal of Trial and Error, an independent diamond open-access journal, and received peer review. Although we have decided not to pursue journal publication, we are grateful to the reviewers and editor for their thoughtful engagement with the work. We value the transparency that preprinting makes possible and, with the permission of both reviewers and the editor (Sarahanne Field), have included the named reviews as an appendix. We hope that sharing the reviews alongside the preprint preserves and contributes to the broader scholarly conversation this work was intended to stimulate, rather than incorporating feedback from an otherwise private review process into a revised manuscript.

To correct errors in the scientific record, researchers must dedicate time and attention to the task. However, time and attention are both extremely limited resources in science. Resource-efficient quality control that targets the scientific output most in need of correction is a crucial part of facilitating effective scientific self-correction in practice. This piece summarizes a one-day hackathon that took place during the Perspectives on Scientific Error conference in 2024. The hackathon was devoted to discussing how scientific fields such as psychology can coordinate scientific quality control work in practice in three situations: 1) for promotions and getting tenure, 2) at journals during pre- and post-publication stages, and 3) in error detection projects. These hackathon proceedings contain a summary of these three discussions, as well as a summary of topics brought up during the general discussion (see end of piece). We believe this can serve as a starting point for further discussion about how to select studies to scrutinize during pre-, and post-publication stages within and across different fields.Update November 2026: we have uploaded a version 2 of this preprint, now including an author note stating that: This preprint was submitted to the Journal of Trial and Error, an independent diamond open-access journal, and received peer review. Although we have decided not to pursue journal publication, we are grateful to the reviewers and editor for their thoughtful engagement with the work. We value the transparency that preprinting makes possible and, with the permission of both reviewers and the editor (Sarahanne Field), have included the named reviews as an appendix. We hope that sharing the reviews alongside the preprint preserves and contributes to the broader scholarly conversation this work was intended to stimulate, rather than incorporating feedback from an otherwise private review process into a revised manuscript.

Understanding consumer search behavior is crucial for businesses and policymakers aiming to effectively engage with consumers through product offerings and interventions. Consumer search in service for choice remains a significant topic in marketing, economics, and psychology although existing theories differ in fundamental assumptions and methodological approaches. Theoretical assumptions range from the order in which items are searched being independent of their value, to search being influenced by cognitive and visual factors. Methodological approaches vary from directly observing search (with eye tracking or click stream data), to inferring search from choice data alone. This article proposes a framework for integrating theoretical and methodological approaches to consumer search. This integration will help marketers and policymakers compare and apply theories to different contexts. Ultimately, it paves the way to a unified framework for understanding and guiding consumer behavior as well as strategic decisions in marketing and policy. We review five prominent theoretical models, each with distinct terminologies. For each model, we review its background, aims, core assumptions, and provide illustrative examples. Our contribution is twofold: (1) we initiate a synthesis to resolve terminological differences and outline a path toward theory integration, and (2) we discuss how our framework can guide future research and foster a more comprehensive understanding of consumer search and choice.

Trajectories of attention capture the accumulation of brand utility during complex decision-making tasks. Thus, attention trajectories, as reflected in eye movements, predict the final brand choice of 85% of consumers before they implement it. Even when observing eye movements in only the first quarter of the decision process, attention already predicts brand choice much better (45%) than chance levels (20%). This superior prediction performance is due to a “double attention lift” for the chosen brand: The chosen brand receives progressively more attention toward the moment of choice, and more of this attention is devoted to integrating information about the brand rather than to comparing it with other options. In contrast, the currently owned brand grabs attention early in the task, and its attention gain persists for brand-loyal consumers and shifts for brand-switching consumers. A new attention and choice model used in tandem with the Bayesian K-fold cross-validation methodology on eye-tracking data from 325 representative consumers uncovered these attention trajectory effects. The findings contribute to closing important knowledge gaps in the attention and choice literature and have implications for marketing research and managerial practice.

In behavioral, cognitive, and social sciences, reaction time measures are an important source of information. However, analyses on reaction time data are affected by researchers’ analytical choices and the order in which these choices are applied. The results of a systematic literature review, presented in this paper, revealed that the justification for and order in which analytical choices are conducted are rarely reported, leading to difficulty in reproducing results and interpreting mixed findings. To address this methodological shortcoming, we created a checklist on reporting reaction time pre-processing to make these decisions more explicit, improve transparency, and thus, promote best practices within the field. The importance of the pre-processing checklist was additionally supported by an expert consensus survey and a multiverse analysis. Consequently, we appeal for maximal transparency on all methods applied and offer a checklist to improve replicability and reproducibility of studies that use reaction time measures.

Life abounds with situations in which we must decide whether to act unethically for personal gain or to be prosocial, thus maintaining a positive image of ourselves as being a ‘good person’. Evidence suggests that acute stress may influence moral decisions and prosocial behavior. However, it is currently unclear whether stress increases or decreases immoral behavior. Here, we hypothesize that stress, through its effects on cognitive control, has different effects on moral decision making for different individuals, depending on their moral default. We test this hypothesis by combining a task which allows for inconspicuously measuring spontaneous cheating with a well-established stress induction task. Our findings confirm our hypothesis, revealing that effects of stress on dishonesty are not uniform, but instead depend on the individual: for those who are relatively dishonest, stress increases dishonesty, whereas for participants who are relatively honest stress does not increase dishonesty and perhaps makes them even slightly more honest. These findings go a long way in resolving the conflicting findings in the literature on the effects of stress on prosocial behavior, suggesting that stress affects prosocial behavior differently for different individuals, depending on their moral default.