ArticleComputational brain & behavior2026
Don't forget the world outside the lab - a comment on "Illusions of Understanding in the Sciences".
Article in Computational brain & behavior, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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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.
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.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The article "Illusions of Understanding in the Sciences" by Shiffrin et al. (2026) describes ways in which scientists can mislead themselves and others about the extent to which they understand the (causal underpinnings of) phenomena they research. In this reply, we highlight how such "illusions of understanding" can arise from researchers overestimating the extent to which their results generalize beyond curated lab conditions. Since experimental designs are informed by researchers' theoretical lenses and methodological preferences, we argue that interdisciplinary work (which exposes one to different lenses) on more applied problems (which exposes one to less idealized conditions) can reveal such illusions.
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Registered trials
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.