Experimental Psychology

As in the past years, Experimental Psychology continues to serve as a fast international outlet for excellent basic research from all areas of experimental psychology. The journal’s well-established reputation is reflected in a mean impact factor of 2.07 over the last five years, and by a h5-index of 23.1 In the last year, the average time from submission to editorial decision was 29 days, and the majority of decisions were made within our six-week deadline. The number of high-quality submissions remained high, necessitating a selective editorial process to identify the top submissions. About 60% of submissions were rejected, with another 25% rejected with the option to resubmit. The remaining submissions were accepted pending major (10%) or minor (5%) revisions. Submissions came from 28 different countries, and this internationality is well reflected in the team of Associate Editors and the Editorial Board (12 countries).

In July 2013, Thorsten Meiser has decided to step down as an Editor in Chief. I would like to express my gratitude to Thorsten and his team of assistants for their dedicated and most competent service to Experimental Psychology. Thorsten has served as an Associate Editor since 2006, before he took over the position of Editor-in-Chief from Edgar Erdfelder in 2011. Jan Rummel and Dennis Boywitt have assisted him during that time, and Dennis has helped smooth the transition to the new team by continuing to serve until the end of 2013. Thorsten’s achievements include assembling a dedicated international team of Associate Editors, streamlining the editorial workflow, strengthening the Theoretical Article format (e.g., Brysbaert et al., 2011; Voss, Nagler, & Lerche, 2013; Yechiam & Rakow, 2012), and increasing the turnaround speed to an excellent average of 4 weeks. The editorial team will continue to benefit from Thorsten’s expertise in the future, as he agreed to continue to serve the journal as a member of the Editorial Board.

Registered Reports

The journal continues to maintain its profile of methodological rigor and theoretical relevance. In past editorials, state-of-the-art statistical procedures and the comprehensive reporting of results (e.g., Erdfelder, 2010) have been established as essential criteria for publication in Experimental Psychology, as well as the important role of a theoretical foundation from which specific predictions can be derived to guide research (e.g., Meiser, 2011). To further strengthen its emphasis on theoretical relevance and methodological rigor, Experimental Psychology introduces a new publication format: The Registered Report (see also Chambers, 2013; Wolfe, 2013). This new format invites submissions of research proposals that aim at testing hypotheses using prespecified experimental methods and analyses. These proposals will be evaluated, and editorial decisions will be made, before the results of a proposed study are known (Greve, Bröder, & Erdfelder, 2013). A central advantage of this procedure is that it eliminates publication bias.

As stated in the guidelines for authors2 the Registered Report format realizes result-blind peer review and editorial decisions by evaluating research proposals (i.e., manuscripts that comprise the Introduction, Methods, and Data Analysis sections) before data collection. These proposals will be reviewed with emphasis on the theoretical value and methodological rigor of the work to be done. In case of an initial acceptance decision, authors proceed with data collection and analysis in accordance with the accepted protocol and complete the Results and Discussion sections. The final manuscript will be evaluated to verify that the work was completed according to the approved protocols and that the conclusions are supported by the results. Importantly, once initially approved, manuscripts are published regardless of the direction or statistical significance of the results.

The Registered Report article is an additional option for authors. It is especially well suited for confirmatory research (Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, van der Maas, & Kievit, 2012) that aims at testing hypotheses or predictions derived from theory, as well as for attempts to replicate theoretically relevant findings. Registered Reports also allow for reporting theoretically innovative exploratory research, on which a hypothesis or prediction is based, along with a registered confirmatory study that aims at testing that hypothesis.

Established Article Types

The journal will continue to publish methodologically rigorous experimental research from all areas of psychology that contributes to theoretical development in basic psychological research. The main publication format for multiple-study research is the Research Article. In addition, Short Research Articles are available for research including one or two studies. Research Articles should be as concise as possible. If word limits do not allow for a comprehensive report of methods, analyses, and results, supplemental materials can be provided electronically to help disseminate the research and support replication of the reported studies.

The journal strongly encourages authors to publish raw data. To facilitate dissemination of their research, authors are asked to provide an electronic file containing the data necessary to reproduce the reported results, as well as any required additional information (e.g., codebook, scripts for data analysis).

In addition to the article types for empirical research, Theoretical Articles are published that make a substantial contribution to theoretical research questions, methodological issues, or issues of modeling or statistics, that are particularly relevant for experimental psychologists.

Occasional brief theoretical contributions will continue to be published in the form of Commentaries. The discussions of the Musical Stroop task in the current issue (Akiva-Kabiri & Henik, 2014; Gast, 2014; Grégoire, Perruchet, & Poulin-Charronnat, 2014; Moeller & Frings, 2014; Zakay, 2014) provide an excellent illustration of how commentaries can contribute to theoretical and methodological development.

Continuing on the path established by previous editorial teams, theoretical relevance and methodological rigor will remain to be the journal’s main criteria. The new Registered Report format aims at strengthening and extending this focus. In addition, by increasing the public availability of raw data as well as supplemental materials for all article types, the journal contributes to facilitating the dissemination of published research and to building cumulative science. I am grateful to be supported by an excellent team of Associate Editors who will continue to guarantee fast and competent editorial decisions for the increasing number of submissions from many areas of basic psychological research.