TY - JOUR

T1 - Collaborative open science as a way to reproducibility and new insights in primate cognition research

AU - Altschul, Drew

AU - Beran, Michael J.

AU - Bohn, Manuel

AU - Caspar, Kai

AU - Fichtel, Claudia

AU - Försterling, Marlene

AU - Grebe, Nicholas

AU - Hernandez-Aguilar, R. Adriana

AU - Rodrigo, Alba Motes

AU - Proctor, Darby

AU - Sanchez-Amaro, Alejandro

AU - Szabelska, Anna

AU - Taylor, Derry

AU - van der Mescht, Joléne

AU - Völter, Christoph

AU - Watzek, Julia

AU - Simpson, Elizabeth

AU - Kwok, Sze Chai

PY - 2019/10/31

Y1 - 2019/10/31

N2 - The field of primate cognition studies how primates, including humans, perceive, process, store, retrieve, and use information to guide decision making and other behavior. Much of this research is motivated by a desire to understand how these abilities evolved. Large and diverse samples from a wide range of species are vital to achieving this goal. In reality, however, primate cognition research suffers from small sample sizes and is often limited to a handful of species, which constrains the evolutionary inferences we can draw. We conducted a systematic review of primate cognition research published between 2014 and 2019 to quantify the extent of this problem. Across 574 studies, the median sample size was 7 individuals. Less than 15% of primate species were studied at all, and only 19% of studies included more than one species. Further, the species that were studied varied widely in how much research attention they received, partly because a small number of test sites contributed most of the studies. These results suggest that the generalizability of primate cognition studies may be severely limited. Publication bias, questionable research practices, and a lack of replication attempts may exacerbate these problems. We describe the ManyPrimates project as one approach to overcoming some of these issues by establishing an infrastructure for large-scale collaboration in primate cognition research. Building on similar initiatives in other areas of psychology, this approach has already yielded one of the largest and most diverse primate samples to date and enables us to ask many research questions that can only be addressed through collaboration.

AB - The field of primate cognition studies how primates, including humans, perceive, process, store, retrieve, and use information to guide decision making and other behavior. Much of this research is motivated by a desire to understand how these abilities evolved. Large and diverse samples from a wide range of species are vital to achieving this goal. In reality, however, primate cognition research suffers from small sample sizes and is often limited to a handful of species, which constrains the evolutionary inferences we can draw. We conducted a systematic review of primate cognition research published between 2014 and 2019 to quantify the extent of this problem. Across 574 studies, the median sample size was 7 individuals. Less than 15% of primate species were studied at all, and only 19% of studies included more than one species. Further, the species that were studied varied widely in how much research attention they received, partly because a small number of test sites contributed most of the studies. These results suggest that the generalizability of primate cognition studies may be severely limited. Publication bias, questionable research practices, and a lack of replication attempts may exacerbate these problems. We describe the ManyPrimates project as one approach to overcoming some of these issues by establishing an infrastructure for large-scale collaboration in primate cognition research. Building on similar initiatives in other areas of psychology, this approach has already yielded one of the largest and most diverse primate samples to date and enables us to ask many research questions that can only be addressed through collaboration.

KW - Psychology

U2 - 10.24602/sjpr.62.3_205

DO - 10.24602/sjpr.62.3_205

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 62

SP - 205

EP - 220

JO - Japanese Psychological Review

JF - Japanese Psychological Review

SN - 0386-1058

IS - 3

ER -