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Training attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation is theorized to be essential for the cultivation of mindfulness and its salutary outcomes. Yet, the empirical foundation for this central premise in mindfulness science is surprisingly small due to a limited methodological capacity to measure attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. Accordingly, we set out to measure and study these processes in a laboratory study (N = 143, 76.92% female) using a novel behavioral measurement paradigm – the Mindful Awareness Task (MAT). We empirically characterized attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation and found novel behavioral evidence indicating that, as long-theorized, these processes were related to previous mindfulness meditation practice, attitudinal qualities of mindfulness, attention regulation, and mental health. Furthermore, we found that the accuracy of self-reported mindfulness was, paradoxically, dependent on behavioral capacities for mindful awareness; and that sustained visual attention and executive functions, measured via cognitive-experimental tasks, were not meaningfully related to attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. In contrast, the MAT demonstrated sound psychometric performance as a measure of mindful awareness and may overcome significant limitations of extant mindfulness measurement methods. Collectively, findings challenge conceptual and methodological assumptions in mindfulness science, provide a novel paradigmatic direction for research on mindfulness, and present long-awaited evidence that attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation may indeed be fundamental to its practice, cultivation, and salutary functions.

Registered reports are a publication format that involves peer reviewing studies both before and after carrying out research procedures. Although registered reports were originally developed to combat challenges in quantitative and confirmatory study designs, today registered reports are also available for qualitative and exploratory work. This article provides a brief primer that aims to help researchers in choosing, designing, and evaluating registered reports, which are driven by qualitative methods.

Effective science communication is challenging when scientific messages are informed by a continually updating evidence base and must often compete against misinformation. We argue that we need a new program of science communication as collective intelligence—a collaborative approach, supported by technology. This would have four key advantages over the typical model where scientists communicate as individuals: scientific messages would be informed by (a) a wider base of aggregated knowledge, (b) contributions from a diverse scientific community, (c) participatory input from stakeholders, and (d) better responsiveness to ongoing changes in the state of knowledge.

This study reports an independent replication of the findings presented by Smaldino and McElreath (Smaldino, McElreath 2016 R. Soc. Open Sci. 3 , 160384 ( doi:10.1098/rsos.160384 )). The replication was successful with one exception. We find that selection acting on scientist’s propensity for replication frequency caused a brief period of exuberant replication not observed in the original paper due to a coding error. This difference does not, however, change the authors’ original conclusions. We call for more replication studies for simulations as unique contributions to scientific quality assurance.

The push for open science has produced many initiatives that arguably improve the quality of science, such as preregistration of research methods, more general availability of scientific articles in the form of preprints and open access articles, and the availability of (meta)data and code. Open science can have direct benefits for the career prospects of the individual through higher quality of the work and increased chance of publication (Allen & Mehler, 2019). However, being an outspoken advocate of open science might also have indirect positive effects on individual scientific careers, in the form of status in a scientific community, decisions for tenure, and eligibility for certain kinds of funding. In light of these benefits, it may be profitable for individual labs to appear to engage in open science practices, without actually putting in the associated effort or doing only the bare minimum. In this article, we explore two types of academic behavior through a dynamic computational model (cf. Smaldino & McElreath, 2016) of an academic community that rewards open science: 1) actively practicing open science and/or 2) advocating open science. Crossing these two types of behavior leads to four different kinds of labs and we examine which of them thrive in this academic community. Implications of the model results are discussed.

This study assesses the extent of selective hypothesis reporting in psychological research by comparing the hypotheses found in a set of 459 preregistrations to the hypotheses found in the corresponding papers. We found that more than half of the preregistered studies we assessed contain omitted hypotheses (N = 224; 52.2%) or added hypotheses (N = 227; 56.8%), and about one-fifth of studies contain changed hypotheses (N = 82; 19%). We found only a small number of studies with demoted hypotheses (N = 2; 1%) and no studies with promoted hypotheses. In all, 59% of studies include at least one hypothesis in one or more of these categories, indicating a substantial bias in presenting and selecting hypotheses by researchers and/or reviewers/editors. Contrary to our expectations, we found that added hypotheses and changed hypotheses were not more likely to be statistically significant than non-selectively reported hypotheses. For the other types of selective hypothesis reporting, no powerful test of the relationship with statistical significance could be carried out. Finally, we found that replication studies were less likely to include selectively reported hypotheses than original studies. Thus, selective hypothesis reporting is problematically common in psychological research and may partly be explained by the fact that authors do not specifically and clearly enough formulate hypotheses in preregistrations and papers. We urge researchers, reviewers, and editors to ensure that hypotheses outlined in preregistrations are clearly formulated and accurately presented in the corresponding papers.

A large number of systematic replication attempts in the social sciences have failed to support the claims in the original studies. These surprising results have inspired a body of metascientific research aimed at understanding these failures to replicate and ensuring future research is credible. In this article, we relate these new insights from metascience to empirical legal research. Specifically, a recent effort to replicate three influential empirical legal studies published in law journals found results that diverged from the originals. The replicators suggested their results were caused by the changing social context and did not explicitly consider whether the original effects were overstated or false positives. We re-analysed the data from the replications to attempt to confirm their results (i.e., computational reproducibility) with mixed success. When possible, we combined the data from the replications (i.e., meta-analysis) to leverage the greater precision that comes with large sample sizes. In one case, we found an effect where the replicators did not. Overall, however, our re-analysis and review of the broader social scientific context suggests that empirical legal research suffers from the same challenges plaguing other fields – small sample sizes and undisclosed flexibility have produced untrustworthy results.

ARTICLE PUBLISHED (OPEN ACCESS) IN BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. Qualitative data sharing practices in psychology have not developed as rapidly as those in parallel quantitative domains. This is often explained by numerous epistemological, ethical, and pragmatic issues concerning qualitative data types. In this essay, I provide an alternative to the frequently expressed (often reasonable) concerns regarding the sharing of qualitative human data by highlighting three advantages of qualitative data sharing. I argue that sharing qualitative human data is not by default “less ethical,” “riskier,” and “impractical” compared to quantitative data sharing, but in some cases more ethical, less risky, and easier to manage for sharing because 1) informed consent can be discussed, negotiated, and validated, 2) the shared data can be curated by special means, and 3) the privacy risks are mainly local instead of global. I hope the provided alternative perspective further encourages qualitative psychologists to share their data when it is epistemologically, ethically, and pragmatically possible.

Forecasting the reproducibility of research findings is one of the key challenges of Metascience. To date, reliable above-chance predictions have mainly been achieved by pooling the subjective ratings of experts through surveys or via prediction markets. Obtaining such data is laborious, however, and unlikely to increase the theoretical understanding of reproducibility.Here we show that empirical measures of K, a principled metric of knowledge, are correlated with reproducibility forecasts made for the Brazilian Reproducibility Initiative (BRI), an ongoing replication of 60 studies that use three common methodologies in the life sciences. For each study, we calculated the K value by dividing the effect size, measured in bits of Shannon entropy explained, by the descriptive complexity of the study’s methodology, calculated as the optimal Shannon encoding of a conceptual graph representing the replication protocol.K values were statistically associated with subjective predictions about studies’ replication probabilities and relative effect sizes. This relation was robust to controlling for study methodology, and was a stronger predictor than other plausible covariates, including the originally reported effect size, subjective ratings of a study’s methodological difficulty, and raters’ self-reported expertise. The superior fit of K may be due to its particular structure and metrics, which are rooted in information theory and may more accurately reflect the implicit calculations made by raters.This is the first evidence that an objective metric hypothesized to quantify scientific knowledge captures subjective judgments about reproducibility. This finding gives the first independent support of K’s underlying assumption that scientific knowledge is a process of information compression, and it may offer a new tool for metaresearch.

Objectives: Contentless experience involves an absence of mental content such as thoughts and perceptions. It is often described as pure consciousness or complete stillness/silence, and is a goal in Shamatha, Thai Forest, and Stillness Meditation. This study examined the subjective character of the typical experience of stillness/silence reported in each practice, and whether there are differences in reports across traditions. Methods: Eighty-four Shamatha, 80 Thai Forest, and 88 Stillness Meditation participants (M lifetime hours practice = 2,305; median = 671; range = 5–34,021) provided useable responses to an online questionnaire. Participants indicated the extent to which 48 types of mental content described as absent or present in traditional texts were part of their deepest experience of stillness/silence during a specific retreat or during class and home practice. Results: In each tradition participants typically reported a highly positive experience involving low awareness of content such as thoughts and perceptions, and a high degree of abstract content such as calm and mental relaxation. Across the practices there were robust differences with respect to bliss/joy, wakefulness, absorptiveness, and depth. Conclusions: The reported experiences are contentless in the sense that participants reported little awareness of content such as thoughts and perceptions. However, the experiences are not the states devoid of all content (and therefore identical to one another) that have been classically referred to in academic literature. These findings demonstrate the importance of examining contentless experiences in a fine-grained manner that takes into account abstract forms of content and assesses differences as well as similarities. [NOTE: This preprint has not undergone peer review. The peer reviewed version of this article has been published in Mindfulness and is available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-023-02145-0]

Objectives: Meta-analyses of meditation studies have revealed mixed modest evidence of benefits across a range of outcomes. However, because this evidence-base is predominantly from brief interventions, it is unclear whether it accurately reflects how contemporary meditators practice or the dose-response relationship between amount of practice and outcome. This study sought to characterize how contemporary meditators practice, examine any possible dose-response relationships between historical practice and measures of psychological wellbeing, and explore which characteristics of practice most strongly predict favorable psychological outcomes.Methods: One thousand six hundred and sixty-eight meditators (M=1,095 hours practice, SD=2,365) responded to advertisements in meditation practice communities and social media. We explored associations between demographics, meditation practice characteristics, and outcomes including positive and negative affect, psychological distress, and life satisfaction in a cross-sectional study design. Results: Historical meditation practice (accumulated lifetime hours) was significantly associated with favorable psychological outcomes (|r| ranging from .18 - .28). Model fit was optimized with a generalized additive model (average increase in R2=2.22), indicating non-linear effects. The strength of association between practice time and outcomes was generally strongest for approximately the first 500 hours, before plateauing. Several practice types, including Vipassana (as taught by S.N. Goenka) and cultivating practices (e.g., compassion, lovingkindness) were more strongly predictive of favorable psychological outcomes.Conclusions: Benefits of meditation accrue over time in a non-linear manner, and show variation based on practice context. These results highlight the importance of understanding how the benefits of meditation accrue over longer time durations than typical standardized programs.

In their meta-analysis on how privacy concerns and perceived privacy risk are related to online disclosure intentionand behavior, Yu et al. (2020) conclude that “the ‘privacy paradox’ phenomenon (...) exists in our research model” (p. 8). In this comment, we contest this conclusion and present evidence and arguments against it. We find five areas of problems: (1) Flawed logic of hypothesis testing; (2) erroneous and implausible results; (3) questionable decision to use only the direct effect of privacy concerns on disclosure behavior as evidence in testing the privacy paradox; (4) overinterpreting results from MASEM; (5) insufficient reporting and lack of transparency. To guide future research, we offer three recommendations: Going beyond mere null hypothesis significance testing, probing alternative theoretical models, and implementing open science practices. While we value this meta-analytic effort, we caution its readers that, contrary to the authors’ claim, it does not offer evidence in support of the privacy paradox.

Contentless experience involves an absence of mental content such as thoughts, perceptions, and mental images. In academic work it has been traditionally treated as including states like those aimed for in Shamatha, Transcendental, and Stillness Meditation. We have used evidence synthesis to select and review 135 expert texts from within the three traditions. In this paper we identify the features of contentless experience referred to in the expert texts and determine whether the experiences are the same or different across the practices with respect to each feature. We identify 65 features reported or implied in one or more practices, with most being reported or implied in all three. While there are broad similarities in the experiences across the traditions, we find that there are differences with respect to four features and possibly many others. The main difference identified is that Shamatha involves substantially greater attentional stability and vividness. Another key finding is that numerous forms of content are present in the experiences, including wakefulness, naturalness, calm, bliss/joy, and freedom. The findings indicate that meditation experiences described as contentless in the academic literature can in fact involve considerable variation, and that in many and perhaps most cases these experiences are not truly contentless. This challenges traditional understandings in academic research that in these so-called contentless experiences all content is absent, and that the experiences are therefore an identical state of pure consciousness or consciousness itself. Implications for neuroscientific and clinical studies and for basic understandings of the practices are discussed. [NOTE: This preprint has not undergone peer review. The peer reviewed version of this article has been published in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences and is available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-022-09811-z]