背景:主流心理学正在经历信任危机。响应提供的许多方法论解决方案主要集中在零假设统计测试的统计替代方案上,忽略心理学中随时可用的非统计补救措施;即使用小N设计。事实上,许多通过可复制性测试的经典记忆研究都使用了它们。该方法学遗产需要对非实验数据进行回顾性研究,以探索所报告效果的普遍性。
方法:在心理学入门课程的多个学期中进行了各种课堂演示,主要是来自美国中西部一所以白人为主的私立天主教大学的新生,基于关于即时记忆跨度的经典记忆实验,分块,加工的深度。
结果:学生倾向于记住7±2位数字,在附加的有意义的故事之后,记住了π的更多数字,精心排练后记住的单词比维护排练后记住的单词多。这些结果相当于在原始假设统计测试框架之外进行的经典实验的不受控制的课堂环境下的复制。
结论:鉴于心理学中持续的复制危机,成果显著,值得注意,验证这些历史上重要的心理学发现。它们证明了可复制效应作为科学实证研究结果的标志的可靠性,并提出了一种替代方法来解决复制危机。
BACKGROUND: Mainstream psychology is experiencing a crisis of confidence. Many of the methodological solutions offered in response have focused largely on statistical alternatives to null hypothesis statistical testing, ignoring nonstatistical remedies that are readily available within psychology; namely, use of small-N designs. In fact, many classic memory studies that have passed the test of replicability used them. That methodological legacy warranted a retrospective look at nonexperimental data to explore the generality of the reported effects.
METHODS: Various classroom demonstrations were conducted over multiple semesters in introductory psychology courses with typical, mostly freshman students from a predominantly white private Catholic university in the US Midwest based on classic memory experiments on immediate memory span, chunking, and depth of processing.
RESULTS: Students tended to remember 7 ± 2 digits, remembered more digits of π following an attached meaningful story, and remembered more words after elaborative rehearsal than after maintenance rehearsal. These results amount to replications under uncontrolled classroom environments of the classic experiments originally conducted largely outside of null hypothesis statistical testing frameworks.
CONCLUSIONS: In light of the ongoing replication crisis in psychology, the results are remarkable and noteworthy, validating these historically important psychological findings. They are testament to the reliability of reproducible effects as the hallmark of empirical findings in science and suggest an alternative approach to commonly proffered solutions to the replication crisis.