Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39957549›Full record

ArticlePsychophysiology2025

Impact of ERP Reliability Cutoffs on Sample Characteristics and Effect Sizes: Performance-Monitoring ERPs in Psychosis and Healthy Controls.

Gavin Heindorf, Amanda Holbrook, Bohyun Park, Gregory A Light, Philippe Rast, Dan Foti, Roman Kotov, Peter E Clayson

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Psychophysiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing 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

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Beyond classical metrics: Generalizability theory across psychophysiological modalities.International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology · 2026
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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

8 authors.

Gavin HeindorfDepartment of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA.
Amanda HolbrookDepartment of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-7247-2926
Bohyun ParkDepartment of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA.ORCID 0009-0007-7623-2368
Gregory A LightVISN 22 Mental Illness Research, Education & Clinical Center (MIRECC), San Diego VA Healthcare System, San Diego, California, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4730-8646
Philippe RastDepartment of Psychology, University of California - Davis, Davis, California, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3630-6629
Dan FotiDepartment of Psychological Services, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-0544-7659
Roman KotovDepartment of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA.
Peter E ClaysonDepartment of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4437-6598

Funding

Trajectories of Aging in Psychotic Disorders Over 27 YearsR01MH110434 · NIMH · STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK · PI KOTOV, ROMAN I · 2016 to 2020
$4.5M
PsyRAT: Extensible Open-Source Software for Applying Generalizability Theory to Assess Psychometric Reliability of Trial-Wise Scores and Optimize Tasks for RDoCR01MH128208 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA · PI Peter Eugene Clayson · 2022 to 2026
$3.0M
Memantine augmentation of cognitive training in schizophreniaR33MH125114 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI LIGHT, GREGORY A · 2021 to 2023
$2.2M
NIMH NIH HHS MH110434NIMH NIH HHS MH125114NIMH NIH HHS MH128208NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH110434NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH128208NIMH NIH HHS R33 MH125114VISN-22 Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In studies of event-related brain potentials (ERPs), it is common practice to exclude participants for having too few trials for analysis to ensure adequate score reliability (i.e., internal consistency). However, in research involving clinical samples, the impact of increasingly rigorous reliability standards on factors such as sample generalizability, patient versus control effect sizes, and effect sizes for within-group correlations with external variables is unclear. This study systematically evaluated whether different ERP reliability cutoffs impacted these factors in psychosis. Error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) were assessed during a modified flanker task in 97 patients with psychosis and 104 healthy comparison participants, who also completed measures of cognition and psychiatric symptoms. ERP reliability cutoffs had notably different effects on the factors considered. A recommended reliability cutoff of 0.80 resulted in sample bias due to systematic exclusion of patients with relatively few task errors, lower reported psychiatric symptoms, and higher levels of cognitive functioning. ERP score reliability lower than 0.80 resulted in generally smaller between- and within-group effect sizes, likely misrepresenting effect sizes. Imposing rigorous ERP reliability standards in studies of psychotic disorders might exclude high-functioning patients, which raises important considerations for the generalizability of clinical ERP research. Moving forward, we recommend examining characteristics of excluded participants, optimizing paradigms and processing pipelines for use in clinical samples, justifying reliability thresholds, and routinely reporting score reliability of all measurements, ERP or otherwise, used to examine individual differences, especially in clinical research.

Indexed as

ElectroencephalographyEvoked PotentialsPsychomotor PerformancePsychotic DisordersAdolescentAdultFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedReproducibility of ResultsYoung AdultcognitionERP psychometric reliabilityerror positivity (pe)error‐related negativity (ERN)event‐related potentials (ERPs)psychotic disorders

Identifiers

PMID39957549
PMCPMC11839182

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Registered trials

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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.