ArticleFrontiers in psychology2020
The 'Real-World Approach' and Its Problems: A Critique of the Term Ecological Validity.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 115 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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115 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 311 citations in OpenAlex.
- Social functioning in autism: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature human behaviour · 2026Pooled it
- Methodological Considerations and Effectiveness for Ecologically Valid Mental Fatigue Inducement in Sports: A Systematic Review.Sports medicine - open · 2025Pooled it
- Preprocessing choices for P3 analyses with mobile EEG: A systematic literature review and interactive exploration.Psychophysiology · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of mobile brain/body imaging studies using the P300 event-related potentials to investigate cognition beyond the laboratory.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- The psychological and behavioural factors associated with laypeople initiating CPR for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a systematic review.BMC cardiovascular disorders · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Food label granularity and working memory: effects on food choice in a randomized controlled trial.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Trial
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- A Journey Into a Traveler's Mental Map: Duration, Distance, and Speed Experienced in High-Speed Trains.Cognitive science · 2026Article
- Paincontrol: identity-preserving pain expression transfer with generative diffusion models.Biomedical engineering online · 2026Article
- Brunswik's fundamental principle explained: A diffusion lens model of vicarious functioning.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Video game engines as the new "virtual" Skinner box.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2026Article
- Chronotype-specific associations of sleep-wake schedule with behavioral, physiological, and psychological parameters.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2026Article
- Therapeutic modulation of empathy: pharmacological, neurostimulation, and behavioral approaches.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Indices of embodied Neuroergonomic coupling: a theory and hypothesis framework for quantifying brain-body-environment dynamics in built space.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- The evolution of phonemic verbal fluency test: bridging tradition with contemporary insights.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Mapping the Cognitive Constructs Assessed by the Allen Cognitive Level Screen: A Scoping Review.Psychology research and behavior management · 2026Review
- Foreground, midground, and restoration: EEG and preference responses to depth-controlled rural scenes.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
55 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A popular goal in psychological science is to understand human cognition and behavior in the 'real-world.' In contrast, researchers have typically conducted their research in experimental research settings, a.k.a. the 'psychologist's laboratory.' Critics have often questioned whether psychology's laboratory experiments permit generalizable results. This is known as the 'real-world or the lab'-dilemma. To bridge the gap between lab and life, many researchers have called for experiments with more 'ecological validity' to ensure that experiments more closely resemble and generalize to the 'real-world.' However, researchers seldom explain what they mean with this term, nor how more ecological validity should be achieved. In our opinion, the popular concept of ecological validity is ill-formed, lacks specificity, and falls short of addressing the problem of generalizability. To move beyond the 'real-world or the lab'-dilemma, we believe that researchers in psychological science should always specify the particular context of cognitive and behavioral functioning in which they are interested, instead of advocating that experiments should be more 'ecologically valid' in order to generalize to the 'real-world.' We believe this will be a more constructive way to uncover the context-specific and context-generic principles of cognition and behavior.
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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.