False positives and other statistical errors in standard analyses of eye movements in reading.

In research on eye movements in reading, it is common to analyze a number of canonical dependent measures to study how the effects of a manipulation unfold over time. Although this gives rise to the well-known multiple comparisons problem, i.e. an inflated probability that the null hypothesis is inc...

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Publicado en:Journal of Memory & Language Vol. 94; pp. 119 - 134
Autores principales: von der Malsburg, Titus, Angele, Bernhard
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Elsevier B.V. Jun2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jun2017
      vid: 94
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      pub: Elsevier B.V.
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        121938525
        10.1016/j.jml.2016.10.003
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        atl: False positives and other statistical errors in standard analyses of eye movements in reading.
      aug:
        au:
          von der Malsburg, Titus
          Angele, Bernhard
        affil:
          Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Germany
          Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom
      su:
        Computer simulation
        Reading
        Diagnostic errors
        Statistics
        Data analysis
        Measurement errors
        Eye movement measurements
      sug:
        subj:
          Computer simulation
          Reading
          Diagnostic errors
          Statistics
          Data analysis
          Measurement errors
          Eye movement measurements
      keyword:
        Eye-tracking
        False positives
        Null-hypothesis testing
        Sentence processing
        Eye-tracking
        False positives
        Null-hypothesis testing
        Sentence processing
      ab: In research on eye movements in reading, it is common to analyze a number of canonical dependent measures to study how the effects of a manipulation unfold over time. Although this gives rise to the well-known multiple comparisons problem, i.e. an inflated probability that the null hypothesis is incorrectly rejected (Type I error), it is accepted standard practice not to apply any correction procedures. Instead, there appears to be a widespread belief that corrections are not necessary because the increase in false positives is too small to matter. To our knowledge, no formal argument has ever been presented to justify this assumption. Here, we report a computational investigation of this issue using Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, false positives are increased to unacceptable levels when no corrections are applied. Our simulations also show that counter-measures like the Bonferroni correction keep false positives in check while reducing statistical power only moderately. Hence, there is little reason why such corrections should not be made a standard requirement. Further, we discuss three statistical illusions that can arise when statistical power is low, and we show how power can be improved to prevent these illusions. In sum, our work renders a detailed picture of the various types of statistical errors than can occur in studies of reading behavior and we provide concrete guidance about how these errors can be avoided.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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