Abstract
This article synthesizes the extant literature on the Weapons Identification Task (WIT), a sequential priming paradigm developed to investigate the impact of racial priming on identification of stereotype-congruent and stereotype-irrelevant objects. Given recent controversy over the replicability of and statistical power required to detect priming effects, the aim of this synthesis is to systematically assess the literature in order to develop recommendations for statistical power in future research with the WIT paradigm. To develop these recommendations, the present article first quantitatively ascertains the magnitude of publication bias in the extant literature. Next, expected effect sizes and power recommendations are generated from the extant literature. Finally, a close conceptual replication of the WIT paradigm is conducted to prospectively test these recommendations. Racial priming effects are detected in this prospective test providing increased confidence in the WIT priming effect and credibility to the proposed recommendations for power.
Highlights
Powered research is important for many aspects of a cumulative science
Adequately powered designs yield a) greater opportunity to observe true effects, b) lower rates of false-positives (Type I errors) in the published literature, c) more precise estimates of an effect’s magnitude, and d) greater interpretability of nullfindings [1,2,3]. With these considerations in mind, it will be productive to establish shared power guidelines for paradigms that are commonly used in the literature [4]. The purpose of this brief review is to generate and prospectively test power recommendations specific to the Weapons Identification Task (WIT)–a commonly used sequential priming paradigm developed to investigate the influence of stereotypes on the identification of stereotype-congruent and stereotype-irrelevant objects [5]
Mean reaction times were aggregated for each trial type and subjected to mixed model ANOVA with response deadline (500-ms vs. 1000-ms) as a between-subjects factor and prime (Black vs. White) and target as within-subjects factors
Summary
Adequately powered designs yield a) greater opportunity to observe true effects (if they exist), b) lower rates of false-positives (Type I errors) in the published literature, c) more precise estimates of an effect’s magnitude, and d) greater interpretability of nullfindings [1,2,3]. With these considerations in mind, it will be productive to establish shared power guidelines for paradigms that are commonly used in the literature [4]. The present review has the following aims: 1. Describe the WIT paradigm and the effect of interest
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