EEGManyPipelines: A Large-scale, Grassroots Multi-analyst Study of Electroencephalography Analysis Practices in the Wild.

The ongoing reproducibility crisis in psychology and cognitive neuroscience has sparked increasing calls to re-evaluate and reshape scientific culture and practices. Heeding those calls, we have recently launched the EEGManyPipelines project as a means to assess the robustness of EEG research in naturalistic conditions and experiment with an alternative model of conducting scientific research. One hundred sixty-eight analyst teams, encompassing 396 individual researchers from 37 countries, independently analyzed the same unpublished, representative EEG data set to test the same set of predefined hypotheses and then provided their analysis pipelines and reported outcomes. Here, we lay out how large-scale scientific projects can be set up in a grassroots, community-driven manner without a central organizing laboratory. We explain our recruitment strategy, our guidance for analysts, the eventual outputs of this project, and how it might have a lasting impact on the field.

The influence of socioeconomic status and appearance-reality understanding on pre-schoolers' sharing and generosity.

Prosocial behaviour can be defined as any voluntary action that is performed to benefit another individual. Despite accumulating evidence of the importance of environmental variables (e.g., socioeconomic status; SES), and individual characteristics (e.g., theory of mind - ToM - skills), in influencing prosocial behaviours in young children, it is unknown how these factors relate to the underlying motivations for prosocial behaviours. Accordingly, both extrinsically (sharing) and intrinsically (generosity)-guided prosocial behaviours are measured in this study. We explore the influences of SES and ToM skills on young children's sharing behaviour and generosity, while controlling their age, working memory and language skills. Sixty-six 4- to 6 year olds (Mage = 5.24 years, SD = 0.73) from diverse SES (measured by parental education level) and ethnic backgrounds in Singapore completed tasks assessing the ToM measures of false belief and appearance-reality understanding, working memory, language skills, generosity, and sharing behaviour. The results of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrate that the father's education level and children's appearance-reality understanding were significant predictors of sharing, after controlling for age, working memory, language skills, and the mother's education level. Children's appearance-reality understanding was the sole predictor of children's generosity. Our findings highlight the impact of children's ability to hold different views of reality and their family's education levels on the development of sharing and generosity in early childhood.

Asymmetric generalizability of multimodal brain-behavior associations across age-groups.

Machine learning methods have increasingly been used to map out brain-behavior associations (BBA), and to predict out-of-scanner behavior of unseen subjects. Given the brain changes that occur in the context of aging, the accuracy of these predictions is likely to depend on how similar the training and testing data sets are in terms of age. To this end, we examined how well BBAs derived from an age-group generalize to other age-groups. We partitioned the CAM-CAN data set (N = 550) into the young, middle, and old age-groups, then used the young and old age-groups to construct prediction models for 11 behavioral outcomes using multimodal neuroimaging features (i.e., structural and resting-state functional connectivity, and gray matter volume/cortical thickness). These models were then applied to all three age-groups to predict their behavioral scores. When the young-derived models were used, a graded pattern of age-generalization was generally observed across most behavioral outcomes-predictions are the most accurate in the young subjects in the testing data set, followed by the middle and then old-aged subjects. Conversely, when the old-derived models were used, the disparity in the predictive accuracy across age-groups was mostly negligible. These findings hold across different imaging modalities. These results suggest the asymmetric age-generalization of BBAs-old-derived BBAs generalized well to all age-groups, however young-derived BBAs generalized poorly beyond their own age-group.

Frontal Alpha Asymmetry and Theta Oscillations Associated With Information Sharing Intention.

Social media has gained increasing importance in many aspects of everyday life, from building relationships to establishing collaborative networks between individuals worldwide. Sharing behavior is an essential part of maintaining these dynamic networks. However, the precise neural factors that could be related to sharing behavior in online communities remain unclear. In this study, we recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillations of human subjects while they were watching short videos. The subjects were later asked to evaluate the videos based on how much they liked them and whether they would share them. We found that, at the population level, subjects watching videos that would not be shared had higher power spectral density (PSD) amplitudes in the theta band (4-8 Hz), primarily over the frontal and parietal sites of the right hemisphere, than subjects watching videos that would be shared. Previous studies have associated task disengagement with an increase in scalp-wide theta activation, which can be interpreted as a mind-wandering effect. This might suggest that the decision to not share the video may lead to a more automatic/effortless neural pattern. We also found that watching videos that would be shared was associated with lower PSD amplitudes in the alpha band (8-12 Hz) over the central and right frontal sites, and with more negative scores of frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) index scores. These results may be related to previous work linking right-sided frontal EEG asymmetry to the pursuit of social conformity and avoidance of negative outcomes, such as social isolation. Finally, using support vector machine (SVM) algorithms, we show that these EEG parameters and preference rating scores can be used to improve the predictability of sharing information behavior. The information sharing-related EEG pattern described here could therefore improve our understanding of the neural markers associated with sharing behavior and contribute to studies about stimuli propagation.

Resting vagal control and resilience as predictors of cardiovascular allostasis in peacekeepers.

The body's adaptive reaction to a stressful event, an allostatic response, involves vigorous physiological engagement with and efficient recovery from stress. Our aim was to investigate the influence of individual predispositions on cardiac responses to and recovery from a standardized psychosocial stress task (Trier Social Stress Task) in peacekeepers. We hypothesized that those individuals with higher trait resilience and those with higher resting vagal control would be more likely to present an allostatic response: a vigorous cardiac response to stress (i.e., reduction in interbeat intervals and heart rate variability (HRV)) coupled with a significant cardiac recovery in the aftermath. Fifty male military personnel with a mean age of 25.4 years (SD ± 5.99) were evaluated after returning from a peacekeeping mission. Electrocardiogram recordings were made throughout the experimental session, which consisted five conditions: basal, speech preparation, speech delivery, arithmetic task, and recovery. Mean interbeat intervals and HRV were calculated for each condition. An Ego-Resilience Scale and resting vagal control assessed individual predispositions. Stress tasks reduced interbeat intervals (tachycardia) and HRV in comparison with basal, with return to basal in the aftermath (p < 0.001, for all comparisons). Resilience and resting vagal control correlated positively with cardiac parameters for both stress reactivity and recovery (r ≥ 0.29; p < 0.05). In conclusion, peacekeepers showing higher trait resilience and those with higher resting vagal control presented a more adaptive allostatic reaction characterized by vigorous cardiac response to stress (i.e., tachycardia and vagal withdrawal) and efficient cardiac recovery after stress cessation.