Relating violations of measurement invariance to group differences in response times.

Measurement invariance is an assumption underlying the regression of a latent variable on a background variable. It requires the measurement model parameters of the latent variable to be equal across the levels of the background variable. Item-specific violations of this assumption are referred to as differential item functioning and are ideally substantively explainable to warrant theoretically valid and meaningful results.

Contextual and own-age effects in age perception.

Our judgement of certain facial characteristics such as emotion, attractiveness or age, is affected by context. Faces that are flanked by younger faces, for example, are perceived as being younger, whereas faces flanked by older faces are perceived as being older. Here, we investigated whether contextual effects in age perception are moderated by own age effects.

No Common Factor Underlying Decline of Visual Abilities in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Introduction: Recent work has shown an association between cognitive and visual impairments and two main theories were advanced, namely the sensory deprivation and the common cause theories. Most studies considered only basic visual functions such as visual acuity or visual field size and evaluated the association with dementia.

Objectives: To reconcile between these theories and to test the link between visual and cognitive decline in mildly cognitive impaired people.

Ensuring the quality and specificity of preregistrations.

Researchers face many, often seemingly arbitrary, choices in formulating hypotheses, designing protocols, collecting data, analyzing data, and reporting results. Opportunistic use of "researcher degrees of freedom" aimed at obtaining statistical significance increases the likelihood of obtaining and publishing false-positive results and overestimated effect sizes. Preregistration is a mechanism for reducing such degrees of freedom by specifying designs and analysis plans before observing the research outcomes.

Bias and Precision of Continuous Norms Obtained Using Quantile Regression.

Continuous norming is an increasingly popular approach to establish norms when the performance on a test is dependent on age. However, current continuous norming methods rely on a number of assumptions that are quite restrictive and may introduce bias. In this study, quantile regression was introduced as more flexible alternative.

Approximated adjusted fractional Bayes factors: A general method for testing informative hypotheses.

Informative hypotheses are increasingly being used in psychological sciences because they adequately capture researchers' theories and expectations. In the Bayesian framework, the evaluation of informative hypotheses often makes use of default Bayes factors such as the fractional Bayes factor. This paper approximates and adjusts the fractional Bayes factor such that it can be used to evaluate informative hypotheses in general statistical models.

Monitoring Countries in a Changing World: A New Look at DIF in International Surveys.

This paper discusses the issue of differential item functioning (DIF) in international surveys. DIF is likely to occur in international surveys. What is needed is a statistical approach that takes DIF into account, while at the same time allowing for meaningful comparisons between countries.

Distinguishing Fast and Slow Processes in Accuracy - Response Time Data.

We investigate the relation between speed and accuracy within problem solving in its simplest non-trivial form. We consider tests with only two items and code the item responses in two binary variables: one indicating the response accuracy, and one indicating the response speed. Despite being a very basic setup, it enables us to study item pairs stemming from a broad range of domains such as basic arithmetic, first language learning, intelligence-related problems, and chess, with large numbers of observations for every pair of problems under consideration.

Bayes Factors Have Frequency Properties-This Should Not Be Ignored: A Rejoinder to Morey, Wagenmakers, and Rouder.

Hoijtink, van Kooten, and Hulsker ( 2016 ) outline a research agenda for Bayesian psychologists: evaluate and use the frequency properties of Bayes factors. Morey, Wagenmakers, and Rouder ( 2016 ) respond that Bayes factors calibrated using frequency properties should not be used. This paper contains the response of Hoijtink, van Kooten, and Hulsker to the criticism of Morey, Wagenmakers, and Rouder ( 2016 ).

Why Bayesian Psychologists Should Change the Way They Use the Bayes Factor.

The discussion following Bem's ( 2011 ) psi research highlights that applications of the Bayes factor in psychological research are not without problems. The first problem is the omission to translate subjective prior knowledge into subjective prior distributions. In the words of Savage ( 1961 ): "they make the Bayesian omelet without breaking the Bayesian egg.

Ordering Individuals with Sum Scores: The Introduction of the Nonparametric Rasch Model.

When a simple sum or number-correct score is used to evaluate the ability of individual testees, then, from an accountability perspective, the inferences based on the sum score should be the same as the inferences based on the complete response pattern. This requirement is fulfilled if the sum score is a sufficient statistic for the parameter of a unidimensional model. However, the models for which this holds true are known to be restrictive.

A test for conditional independence between response time and accuracy.

An important distinction between different models for response time and accuracy is whether conditional independence (CI) between response time and accuracy is assumed. In the present study, a test for CI given an exponential family model for accuracy (for example, the Rasch model or the one-parameter logistic model) is proposed and evaluated in a simulation study. The procedure is based on the non-parametric Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests.

Conditional statistical inference with multistage testing designs.

In this paper it is demonstrated how statistical inference from multistage test designs can be made based on the conditional likelihood. Special attention is given to parameter estimation, as well as the evaluation of model fit. Two reasons are provided why the fit of simple measurement models is expected to be better in adaptive designs, compared to linear designs: more parameters are available for the same number of observations; and undesirable response behavior, like slipping and guessing, might be avoided owing to a better match between item difficulty and examinee proficiency.

Cognitive diagnostic assessment via Bayesian evaluation of informative diagnostic hypotheses.

There exist diverse approaches that can be used for cognitive diagnostic assessment, such as mastery testing, constrained latent class analysis, rule space methodology, diagnostic cognitive modeling, and person-fit analysis. Each of these approaches can be used within 1 of the 4 psychometric perspectives on diagnostic testing discussed by Borsboom (2008), that is, the dimensional, diagnostic, constructivist, and causal system perspectives. Bayesian evaluation of informative diagnostic hypotheses is an alternative for each of the other approaches that is more flexible in the diagnostic hypotheses that can be evaluated, and it can be used in each of the 4 psychometric perspectives on diagnostic testing.