Excess success in articles on object-based attention

Abstract

Twenty-five years of research has explored the object-based attention effect using the two-rectangles paradigm and closely related paradigms. While reading this literature, we noticed statistical attributes that are sometimes related to questionable research practices, which can undermine the reported conclusions. To quantify these attributes, we applied the Test for Excess Success (TES) individually to 37 articles that investigate various properties of object-based attention and comprise four or more experiments. A TES analysis estimates the probability that a direct replication of the experiments in a given article with the same sample sizes would have the same success (or better) as the original article. If the probability is low, then readers should be skeptical about the conclusions that are based on those experimental results. We find that 19 of the 37 analyzed articles (51%) seem too good to be true in that they have a replication probability below 0.1. In a new large sample study, we do find evidence for the basic object-based attention effect in the two-rectangles paradigm, which this literature builds on. A power analysis using this data shows that commonly used sample sizes in studies that investigate properties of object-based attention with the two-rectangles paradigm are, in fact, much too small to reliably detect even the basic effect.