Building a Transparent, Transferable, and Sustainable Foundation for Psycholinguistic Reading Studies in German (TRUST)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Benjamin Gagl
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience ; Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 542604198

Reading research has devised some of the most well-specified computational and verbal models in cognitive psychology. Yet, there are limitations to our knowledge and progress. Systematic large-scale cross-linguistic investigations and replication studies are rare. Instead, most research is done on single languages by separate research groups. This shortcoming compromises comparability and replicability within languages and generalisability across languages and research groups. There are some consequences of the current norm. First, there are practical limitations regarding the number of participants and/or stimuli included in a single study. Thus, researchers conducting small-scale studies often need to compromise. Second, if a single lab is involved in a given study, replication is not established within a language. Third, knowledge about best practices is often transmitted informally within labs. This practice leads to a lack of consensus and heterogeneity between labs. Informal transmission of know-how also prevents researchers from conducting state-of-the-art studies unless they are part of an experienced lab. Here, we plan to establish research protocols on current best practices in reading research: the resulting uniformity is necessary to compare findings across groups. We will bring together researchers with expertise in reading research. Using German (and its dialects) as a case study, we will discuss the best practices for conducting psycholinguistic experiments. The consortium-based consensus will be published as a guideline in a living document format. We will discuss language-specific variables (e.g., whether to include morphologically complex words in an experiment) and participant-level variables (e.g., which tests can measure participants' reading ability or vocabulary knowledge in German). More generally, we discuss alternative approaches to conducting multi- or mono-lingual psycholinguistic research. We will propose an extension of the current project, where our consortium would form part of a research structure that nurtures the protocols and related resources. For example, we could take an observatory approach. The observatory would consist of a network of labs. They would dedicate resources to help other reading researchers worldwide replicate a study or extend studies to the German language. This initiative would include cross-lab replications and access to different participant groups (e.g., individuals with different dialects or dyslexia) or methodologies (e.g., behavioral or brain measures). In short, the current network grant aims to unite reading researchers to establish services that increase research standards for mono- and multilingual studies.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Tanja Charlotte Roembke, Ph.D.