Harold Pashler
Biographic Data
| ID | 1663215 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harold Pashler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Harold |
| FAMILY NAME | Pashler |
| SIGNATURE | PASHLER H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3644-4909 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 110 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Medical Embarrassment
Patients often feel intense embarrassment over exams with their doctors and increasingly evidence shows that embarrassment interferes with medical care in a variety of ways. Three studies examined whether previous experience with a physician vs. seeing the physician for the first time affects embarrassment in two types of situations. Participants imagined themselves in six medical embarrassment scenarios in the context of consulting a doctor of t…
A consensus-based transparency checklist
We present a consensus-based checklist to improve and document the transparency of research reports in social and behavioural research. An accompanying online application allows users to complete the form and generate a report that they can submit with their manuscript or post to a public repository
Author Correction
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper
Elastic analysis procedures
Gildersleeve, Haselton, and Fales (2014) presented a meta-analysis of the effects of fertility on mate preferences in women. Research in this area has categorized fertility using a great variety of methods, chiefly based on self-reported cycle length and time since last menses. We argue that this literature is particularly prone to hidden experimenter degrees of freedom. Studies vary greatly in the duration and timing of windows used to define fe…
Can the goal of honesty be primed
Encyclopedia of the mind
It's hard to conceive of a topic of more broad and personal interest than the study of the mind. In addition to its traditional investigation by the disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience, the mind has also been a focus of study in the fields of philosophy, economics, anthropology, linguistics, computer science, molecular biology, education, and literature. In all these approaches, there is an almost universal fascination with ho…
Is the Replicability Crisis Overblown? Three Arguments Examined
We discuss three arguments voiced by scientists who view the current outpouring of concern about replicability as overblown. The first idea is that the adoption of a low alpha level (e.g., 5%) puts reasonable bounds on the rate at which errors can enter the published literature, making false-positive effects rare enough to be considered a minor issue. This, we point out, rests on statistical misunderstanding: The alpha level imposes no limit on t…
Recent Research on Human Learning Challenges Conventional Instructional Strategies
There has been a recent upsurge of interest in exploring how choices of methods and timing of instruction affect the rate and persistence of learning. The authors review three lines of experimentation—all conducted using educationally relevant materials and time intervals—that call into question important aspects of common instructional practices. First, research reveals that testing, although typically used merely as an assessment device, direct…
Puzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality, and Social Cognition
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studiesofemotion, personality, and social cognition have drawn much attention in recent years, with high-profile studies frequently reporting extremely high (e.g., >.8) correlations between brain activation and personality measures. We show that these correlations are higher than should be expected given the (evidently limited) reliability of both fMRI and personality measures. The high correlations ar…
Spacing Effects in Learning
To achieve enduring retention, people must usually study information on multiple occasions. How does the timing of study events affect retention? Prior research has examined this issue only in a spotty fashion, usually with very short time intervals. In a study aimed at characterizing spacing effects over significant durations, more than 1,350 individuals were taught a set of facts and—after a gap of up to 3.5 months—given a review. A final test …
Learning Styles
The term "learning styles" refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures …
Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks
The authors performed a meta-analysis of the distributed practice effect to illuminate the effects of temporal variables that have been neglected in previous reviews. This review found 839 assessments of distributed practice in 317 experiments located in 184 articles. Effects of spacing (consecutive massed presentations vs. spaced learning episodes) and lag (less spaced vs. more spaced learning episodes) were examined, as were expanding interstud…
Enhanced Memory for Negatively Emotionally Charged Pictures Without Selective Rumination
Emotionally charged materials have been found to elicit higher levels of recall in many studies. However, the use of slow presentations and/or uncontrolled retention intervals may have allowed subjects to rehearse emotional materials preferentially. The authors presented a series of 5 pictures (1 emotionally charged) at a rate of 4 pictures per second, precluding selective rehearsal. In Experiment 1, subjects recalled the pictures immediately or …
Confidence and Accuracy of Near-Threshold Discrimination Responses
How persuasive is a good fit? A comment on theory testing.
Quantitative theories with free parameters often gain credence when they closely fit data. This is a mistake. A good fit reveals nothing about the flexibility of the theory (how much it cannot fit), the variability of the data (how firmly the data rule out what the theory cannot fit), or the likelihood of other outcomes (perhaps the theory could have fit any plausible result), and a reader needs all 3 pieces of information to decide how much the …
Dual-task interference in simple tasks
People often have trouble performing 2 relatively simple tasks concurrently. The causes of this interference and its implications for the nature of attentional limitations have been controversial for 40 years, but recent experimental findings are beginning to provide some answers. Studies of the psychological refractory period effect indicate a stubborn bottleneck encompassing the process of choosing actions and probably memory retrieval generall…
Learning Styles
The term "learning styles" refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures …
Dual-task interference in simple tasks
People often have trouble performing 2 relatively simple tasks concurrently. The causes of this interference and its implications for the nature of attentional limitations have been controversial for 40 years, but recent experimental findings are beginning to provide some answers. Studies of the psychological refractory period effect indicate a stubborn bottleneck encompassing the process of choosing actions and probably memory retrieval generall…
Can the goal of honesty be primed
Recent Research on Human Learning Challenges Conventional Instructional Strategies
There has been a recent upsurge of interest in exploring how choices of methods and timing of instruction affect the rate and persistence of learning. The authors review three lines of experimentation—all conducted using educationally relevant materials and time intervals—that call into question important aspects of common instructional practices. First, research reveals that testing, although typically used merely as an assessment device, direct…
A consensus-based transparency checklist
We present a consensus-based checklist to improve and document the transparency of research reports in social and behavioural research. An accompanying online application allows users to complete the form and generate a report that they can submit with their manuscript or post to a public repository
Elastic analysis procedures
Gildersleeve, Haselton, and Fales (2014) presented a meta-analysis of the effects of fertility on mate preferences in women. Research in this area has categorized fertility using a great variety of methods, chiefly based on self-reported cycle length and time since last menses. We argue that this literature is particularly prone to hidden experimenter degrees of freedom. Studies vary greatly in the duration and timing of windows used to define fe…
Dual-task interference in simple tasks
People often have trouble performing 2 relatively simple tasks concurrently. The causes of this interference and its implications for the nature of attentional limitations have been controversial for 40 years, but recent experimental findings are beginning to provide some answers. Studies of the psychological refractory period effect indicate a stubborn bottleneck encompassing the process of choosing actions and probably memory retrieval generall…
How persuasive is a good fit? A comment on theory testing.
Quantitative theories with free parameters often gain credence when they closely fit data. This is a mistake. A good fit reveals nothing about the flexibility of the theory (how much it cannot fit), the variability of the data (how firmly the data rule out what the theory cannot fit), or the likelihood of other outcomes (perhaps the theory could have fit any plausible result), and a reader needs all 3 pieces of information to decide how much the …
Confidence and Accuracy of Near-Threshold Discrimination Responses
Enhanced Memory for Negatively Emotionally Charged Pictures Without Selective Rumination
Emotionally charged materials have been found to elicit higher levels of recall in many studies. However, the use of slow presentations and/or uncontrolled retention intervals may have allowed subjects to rehearse emotional materials preferentially. The authors presented a series of 5 pictures (1 emotionally charged) at a rate of 4 pictures per second, precluding selective rehearsal. In Experiment 1, subjects recalled the pictures immediately or …
Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks
The authors performed a meta-analysis of the distributed practice effect to illuminate the effects of temporal variables that have been neglected in previous reviews. This review found 839 assessments of distributed practice in 317 experiments located in 184 articles. Effects of spacing (consecutive massed presentations vs. spaced learning episodes) and lag (less spaced vs. more spaced learning episodes) were examined, as were expanding interstud…
Spacing Effects in Learning
To achieve enduring retention, people must usually study information on multiple occasions. How does the timing of study events affect retention? Prior research has examined this issue only in a spotty fashion, usually with very short time intervals. In a study aimed at characterizing spacing effects over significant durations, more than 1,350 individuals were taught a set of facts and—after a gap of up to 3.5 months—given a review. A final test …
Learning Styles
The term "learning styles" refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures …
Puzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality, and Social Cognition
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studiesofemotion, personality, and social cognition have drawn much attention in recent years, with high-profile studies frequently reporting extremely high (e.g., >.8) correlations between brain activation and personality measures. We show that these correlations are higher than should be expected given the (evidently limited) reliability of both fMRI and personality measures. The high correlations ar…
Recent Research on Human Learning Challenges Conventional Instructional Strategies
There has been a recent upsurge of interest in exploring how choices of methods and timing of instruction affect the rate and persistence of learning. The authors review three lines of experimentation—all conducted using educationally relevant materials and time intervals—that call into question important aspects of common instructional practices. First, research reveals that testing, although typically used merely as an assessment device, direct…
Is the Replicability Crisis Overblown? Three Arguments Examined
We discuss three arguments voiced by scientists who view the current outpouring of concern about replicability as overblown. The first idea is that the adoption of a low alpha level (e.g., 5%) puts reasonable bounds on the rate at which errors can enter the published literature, making false-positive effects rare enough to be considered a minor issue. This, we point out, rests on statistical misunderstanding: The alpha level imposes no limit on t…
Can the goal of honesty be primed
Encyclopedia of the mind
It's hard to conceive of a topic of more broad and personal interest than the study of the mind. In addition to its traditional investigation by the disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience, the mind has also been a focus of study in the fields of philosophy, economics, anthropology, linguistics, computer science, molecular biology, education, and literature. In all these approaches, there is an almost universal fascination with ho…
Elastic analysis procedures
Gildersleeve, Haselton, and Fales (2014) presented a meta-analysis of the effects of fertility on mate preferences in women. Research in this area has categorized fertility using a great variety of methods, chiefly based on self-reported cycle length and time since last menses. We argue that this literature is particularly prone to hidden experimenter degrees of freedom. Studies vary greatly in the duration and timing of windows used to define fe…
A consensus-based transparency checklist
We present a consensus-based checklist to improve and document the transparency of research reports in social and behavioural research. An accompanying online application allows users to complete the form and generate a report that they can submit with their manuscript or post to a public repository
Author Correction
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper
Medical Embarrassment
Patients often feel intense embarrassment over exams with their doctors and increasingly evidence shows that embarrassment interferes with medical care in a variety of ways. Three studies examined whether previous experience with a physician vs. seeing the physician for the first time affects embarrassment in two types of situations. Participants imagined themselves in six medical embarrassment scenarios in the context of consulting a doctor of t…
Psychology (14 works) · Cognitive psychology (9 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Mathematics (5 works) · Audiology (4 works) · Cognition (4 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies (4 works) · Statistics (4 works)