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Calibrating the experimental measurement of psychological attributes

Nature Human Behaviour volume 4, pages 1229–1235 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Behavioural researchers often seek to experimentally manipulate, measure and analyse latent psychological attributes, such as memory, confidence or attention. The best measurement strategy is often difficult to intuit. Classical psychometric theory, mostly focused on individual differences in stable attributes, offers little guidance. Hence, measurement methods in experimental research are often based on tradition and differ between communities. Here we propose a criterion, which we term ‘retrodictive validity’, that provides a relative numerical estimate of the accuracy of any given measurement approach. It is determined by performing calibration experiments to manipulate a latent attribute and assessing the correlation between intended and measured attribute values. Our approach facilitates optimising measurement strategies and quantifying uncertainty in the measurement. Thus, it allows power analyses to define minimally required sample sizes. Taken together, our approach provides a metrological perspective on measurement practice in experimental research that complements classical psychometrics.

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Fig. 1: Retrodiction and calibration.
Fig. 2: Power analysis.
Fig. 3: The retrodiction approach.

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Acknowledgements

D.R.B. is supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. ERC-2018 CoG-816564 ActionContraThreat). S.M.F. is supported by a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society (206648/Z/17/Z). The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging is funded by core funding from the Wellcome Trust (203147/Z/16/Z). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK

    Dominik R. Bach & Stephen M. Fleming

  2. Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Aging Research, University College London, London, UK

    Dominik R. Bach & Stephen M. Fleming

  3. Computational Psychiatry Research, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Dominik R. Bach & Filip Melinščak

  4. Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK

    Stephen M. Fleming

  5. Psychological Research Methods, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Manuel C. Voelkle

  6. Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

    Manuel C. Voelkle

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  1. Dominik R. Bach
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Contributions

D.R.B., F.M., S.M.F. and M.C.V. contributed to conception of the work. D.R.B. wrote and F.M. and M.C.V. contributed to the mathematical derivation. D.R.B., F.M., S.M.F. and M.C.V. wrote and revised the paper.

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Correspondence to Dominik R. Bach.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Results, Supplementary Discussion, Supplementary Fig. 1 and Supplementary References.

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Bach, D.R., Melinščak, F., Fleming, S.M. et al. Calibrating the experimental measurement of psychological attributes. Nat Hum Behav 4, 1229–1235 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-00976-8

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