Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do We Build and Test Psychological Theories?
Compare an effect merely suggested by a theory with a prediction that follows from its specified commitments.
Why you’re reading it. Decide what evidence should prompt checking, revising or abandoning an account.
A question to consider. For the learning-model comparison, name one possible auxiliary failure and one new test that would make your proposed revision more than an after-the-fact accommodation.
Why this reading
Oberauer and Lewandowsky distinguish finding an effect from testing an implication a theory strongly requires. Their analysis asks when a result should alter confidence in an explanation.
Before you read
An effect can be compatible with several theories. The diagnostic value of a result depends on how differently competing accounts lead us to expect it. A nonsignificant result is not automatically evidence that an effect is absent.
Read for
- Separate the link from data to an empirical claim from the link between that claim and a theory.
- Examine the assumed probabilities in the worked examples and the role of auxiliary assumptions in interpreting failed predictions.
Consider afterwards
- A predicted effect is absent. Which independent checks would make that result informative about the theory rather than merely the procedure?
Editorial context
The numerical examples illustrate an inferential argument under stated assumptions; they are not measurements of error rates across psychology. The authors place discovery and theory testing on a continuum and recognize value in both. Their critique of preregistration concerns its limits as a theory test, not permission to conceal analytic choices.