This is fairly old news for people following n-back research, and over-emphasizes one particular study: there have been other studies, even just looking at post-Redick studies. From http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis :
Thank you for the link to your meta-analysis. That’s a lot more helpful than the limited literature review presented in the paper I linked.
After reading your analysis, I am confused about how you determined that “that there is a gain of small-to-medium effect size.” It seems like once you account for the passive placebo effect you actually showed that there is a small-to-non-existent effect.
After reading your analysis, I am confused about how you determined that “that there is a gain of small-to-medium effect size.” It seems like once you account for the passive placebo effect you actually showed that there is a small-to-non-existent effect.
That’s the net effect. It might be overreaching at this moment to say that the passive studies are complete junk and should be ignored.
Part of the issue here is that the active studies have such a small effect partially because of Clouter 2013 which has a negative effect size—I think, because he didn’t report standard deviations, my inferred numbers may exaggerate the strength of his effect, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of him yet. So when I got the Sprenger study last week, I just shrugged and added them both in until such time as I get the right numbers.
(It’s really frustrating because Clouter is a young techy guy who is on both Google+ and Facebook, it shouldn’t be hard at all to get ahold of him! But somehow it’s not working out.)
As far as I can see it’s possible to leave a comment on that post. If facebook doesn’t deliver your message directly to his inbox because you aren’t friends that might be a way to get in contact.
This is fairly old news for people following n-back research, and over-emphasizes one particular study: there have been other studies, even just looking at post-Redick studies. From http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis :
Takeuchi et al 2012
Rudebeck 2012
Vartanian 2013
Heinzel et al 2013
Smith et al 2013
Stephenson & Halpern 2013
Nussbaumer et al 2013
Oelhafen et al 2013
Clouter 2013
Sprenger et al 2013
Thank you for the link to your meta-analysis. That’s a lot more helpful than the limited literature review presented in the paper I linked.
After reading your analysis, I am confused about how you determined that “that there is a gain of small-to-medium effect size.” It seems like once you account for the passive placebo effect you actually showed that there is a small-to-non-existent effect.
That’s the net effect. It might be overreaching at this moment to say that the passive studies are complete junk and should be ignored.
Part of the issue here is that the active studies have such a small effect partially because of Clouter 2013 which has a negative effect size—I think, because he didn’t report standard deviations, my inferred numbers may exaggerate the strength of his effect, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of him yet. So when I got the Sprenger study last week, I just shrugged and added them both in until such time as I get the right numbers.
(It’s really frustrating because Clouter is a young techy guy who is on both Google+ and Facebook, it shouldn’t be hard at all to get ahold of him! But somehow it’s not working out.)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=332127806875228&set=a.316702251751117.76832.316639368424072&type=1&theater seems to be the post through which he recruited the people for his study.
As far as I can see it’s possible to leave a comment on that post. If facebook doesn’t deliver your message directly to his inbox because you aren’t friends that might be a way to get in contact.
Actually, even better, it seems to include his email address!
aclouter@dal.ca
at the bottom; I can just use that in my next try. Thanks!EDIT: got the numbers & updated