A Short Writing Checklist for Students

A number of years ago I compiled a writing checklist for students. Its primary purpose was to make my life easier, but the list was meant to be helpful for the students as well. The checklist is here. My pet peeves: (1) abrupt changes of topic; (2) poorly designed figures; (3) tables and figures that are not described properly in…

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Prediction is Easy, Especially About the Past: A Critique of Posterior Bayes Factors

The Misconception Posterior Bayes factors are a good idea: they provide a measure of evidence but are relatively unaffected by the shape of the prior distribution. The Correction Posterior Bayes factors use the data twice, effectively biasing the outcome in favor of the more complex model. The Explanation The standard Bayes factor is the ratio of predictive performance between two…

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Is Polya’s Fundamental Principle Fundamentally Flawed?

One of the famous fallacies in deductive logic is known as “affirming the consequent”. Here is an example of a syllogism gone wrong: General statement     When Socrates rises early in the morning,     he always has a foul mood. Specific statement     Socrates has a foul mood. Deduction (invalid)     Socrates has risen early in…

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Yes, Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data

Back in 2011, Daryl Bem shocked the academic world by publishing an article in which he claimed to present empirical evidence for the existence of precognition, that is, the ability of people to “look into the future” (Bem, 2011). Particularly shocking was the fact that Bem had managed to publish this claim in the flagship journal of social psychology, the…

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The Story of a Lost Researcher Trying to Learn About Disruptive Behaviors During the Full Moon

Karoline Huth is a first-year student in our Psychology Research Master at the University of Amsterdam. This blog post describes her presentation for the recent course on Bayesian Inference for Psychology. The assignment was to conduct a Bayesian reanalysis of existing data. Kudos to Karoline for being brave enough to share her work here! [EJ] Presentation Intro and Background Bayesian…

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