Upfront design beats post hoc reliability fixes

Junhua Dang; Shanshan Xiao

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007

Upfront design beats post hoc reliability fixes

Junhua Dang
, Shanshan Xiao

School of Humanities and Social Science

Xi'an Eurasia University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Short survey › peer-review

Abstract

Behavioral tasks often show robust group effects yet unreliable person-level estimates. Many ‘reliability fixes’ yield mixed results because they rarely change the two determinants of person-level reliability: trials per person and per-trial informativeness. Recent evidence supports this two-lever view and motivates routine reliability auditing and measurement engineering for translational use.

Original language	English
Journal	Trends in Cognitive Sciences
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007
State	Accepted/In press - 2026

Keywords

reliability paradox
task calibration
within-person sampling

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10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007

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title = "Upfront design beats post hoc reliability fixes",

abstract = "Behavioral tasks often show robust group effects yet unreliable person-level estimates. Many {\textquoteleft}reliability fixes{\textquoteright} yield mixed results because they rarely change the two determinants of person-level reliability: trials per person and per-trial informativeness. Recent evidence supports this two-lever view and motivates routine reliability auditing and measurement engineering for translational use.",

keywords = "reliability paradox, task calibration, within-person sampling",

author = "Junhua Dang and Shanshan Xiao",

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year = "2026",

doi = "10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007",

language = "英语",

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AU - Dang, Junhua

AU - Xiao, Shanshan

PY - 2026

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AB - Behavioral tasks often show robust group effects yet unreliable person-level estimates. Many ‘reliability fixes’ yield mixed results because they rarely change the two determinants of person-level reliability: trials per person and per-trial informativeness. Recent evidence supports this two-lever view and motivates routine reliability auditing and measurement engineering for translational use.

KW - reliability paradox

KW - task calibration

KW - within-person sampling

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105037737881

U2 - 10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007

DO - 10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007

M3 - 短篇评述

AN - SCOPUS:105037737881

SN - 1364-6613

JO - Trends in Cognitive Sciences

JF - Trends in Cognitive Sciences

ER -

Upfront design beats post hoc reliability fixes

Abstract

Keywords

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