Two replications of Raymond, Shapiro, and Arnell (1992), The Attentional Blink

Abstract

In order to improve the trustworthiness of our science, several new research practices have been suggested, including preregistration, large statistical power, availability of research data and materials, new statistical standards, and the replication of experiments. We conducted a replication project on an original phenomenon that was discovered more than 25 years ago, namely the attentional blink (Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, Human Perception and Performance, 18(3), 849–860, 1992), which has been conceptually replicated hundreds of times with major variations. Here, we ran two identical experiments, adopting the new practices and closely reproducing the original experiment. The two experiments were run by different research groups in different countries and laboratories with different participants. Experiment 1 shared remarkable similarities (in magnitude and duration of the effect) with the original study, but also some differences (the overall accuracy of participants, the timing of the effect, and lag-1 sparing). Experts interviewed to evaluate our results stressed the similarities rather than the differences. Experiment 2 replicated nearly identically the results observed in Experiment 1. These findings show that the adoption of new research practices improves the replicability of experimental research and opens the door for a quantitative and direct comparison of the results collected across different laboratories and countries.