TY  - JOUR
A1  - Nicenboim, Bruno
A1  - Roettger, Timo B.
A1  - Vasishth, Shravan
T1  - Using meta-analysis for evidence synthesis
BT  - the case of incomplete neutralization in German
JF  - Journal of phonetics
N2  - Within quantitative phonetics, it is common practice to draw conclusions based on statistical significance alone Using incomplete neutralization of final devoicing in German as a case study, we illustrate the problems with this approach. If researchers find a significant acoustic difference between voiceless and devoiced obstruents, they conclude that neutralization is incomplete, and if they find no significant difference, they conclude that neutralization is complete. However, such strong claims regarding the existence or absence of an effect based on significant results alone can be misleading. Instead, the totality of available evidence should be brought to bear on the question. Towards this end, we synthesize the evidence from 14 studies on incomplete neutralization in German using a Bayesian random-effects meta-analysis. Our meta-analysis provides evidence in favor of incomplete neutralization. We conclude with some suggestions for improving the quality of future research on phonetic phenomena: ensure that sample sizes allow for high-precision estimates of the effect; avoid the temptation to deploy researcher degrees of freedom when analyzing data; focus on estimates of the parameter of interest and the uncertainty about that parameter; attempt to replicate effects found; and, whenever possible, make both the data and analysis available publicly. (c) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
KW  - Meta-analysis
KW  - Incomplete neutralization
KW  - Final devoicing
KW  - German
KW  - Bayesian data analysis
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2018.06.001
SN  - 0095-4470
VL  - 70
SP  - 39
EP  - 55
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Nicenboim, Bruno
A1  - Vasishth, Shravan
A1  - Engelmann, Felix
A1  - Suckow, Katja
T1  - Exploratory and confirmatory analyses in sentence processing
BT  - a case study of number interference in German
JF  - Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society
N2  - Given the replication crisis in cognitive science, it is important to consider what researchers need to do in order to report results that are reliable. We consider three changes in current practice that have the potential to deliver more realistic and robust claims. First, the planned experiment should be divided into two stages, an exploratory stage and a confirmatory stage. This clear separation allows the researcher to check whether any results found in the exploratory stage are robust. The second change is to carry out adequately powered studies. We show that this is imperative if we want to obtain realistic estimates of effects in psycholinguistics. The third change is to use Bayesian data-analytic methods rather than frequentist ones; the Bayesian framework allows us to focus on the best estimates we can obtain of the effect, rather than rejecting a strawman null. As a case study, we investigate number interference effects in German. Number feature interference is predicted by cue-based retrieval models of sentence processing (Van Dyke & Lewis, 2003; Vasishth & Lewis, 2006), but it has shown inconsistent results. We show that by implementing the three changes mentioned, suggestive evidence emerges that is consistent with the predicted number interference effects.
KW  - Exploratory and confirmatory analyses
KW  - Sentence processing
KW  - Bayesian hierarchical modeling
KW  - Cue-based retrieval
KW  - Working memory
KW  - Similarity-based interference
KW  - Number interference
KW  - German
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12589
SN  - 0364-0213
SN  - 1551-6709
VL  - 42
SP  - 1075
EP  - 1100
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -