Does sadness impair color perception? Flawed evidence and faulty methods.

Alex O Holcombe, Nicholas J L Brown, Patrick T Goodbourn, Alexander Etz, Sebastian Geukes

Abstract read

In one paragraph

Article in F1000Research, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

0citing papers in PubMed

–field-weighted citation impact

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Alex O HolcombeSchool of Psychology, University of Sydney, New South Wales, 2006, Australia.

Nicholas J L BrownDepartment of Health Sciences, University Medical Center, University of Groningen, Groningen, 9713 GZ, Netherlands.

Patrick T GoodbournSchool of Psychology, University of Sydney, New South Wales, 2006, Australia; School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia.

Alexander EtzDepartment of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697-5100, USA.

Sebastian GeukesInstitut für Psychologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, 48149, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In their 2015 paper, Thorstenson, Pazda, and Elliot offered evidence from two experiments that perception of colors on the blue-yellow axis was impaired if the participants had watched a sad movie clip, compared to participants who watched clips designed to induce a happy or neutral mood. Subsequently, these authors retracted their article, citing a mistake in their statistical analyses and a problem with the data in one of their experiments. Here, we discuss a number of other methodological problems with Thorstenson et al.'s experimental design, and also demonstrate that the problems with the data go beyond what these authors reported. We conclude that repeating one of the two experiments, with the minor revisions proposed by Thorstenson et al., will not be sufficient to address the problems with this work.

Indexed as

colorMoodopen dataperceptionreanalysis

Identifiers

PMID27606051

DOI10.12688/f1000research.9202.1

PMCPMC4979646

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.