Editorial 2020

The beginning of 2019 marked 30 years from the original establishment of Journal of Cognitive Psychology in 1989 under the Editorship of Michael Eysenck. At that time, the journal was the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, and the ambition was to create a new forum for facilitating knowledge exchange relating to cognitive research and theory across Europe and beyond. This ambition was readily realised during the journal’s early years, and it was no surprise that in 2011 the journal changed its title to Journal of Cognitive Psychology to reflect its truly global reach well beyond European borders. This international emphasis has continued unabated, as reflected in the journal’s international editorial board and readership as well as in relation to the authorship of published papers. In 2019, for example, authors’ affiliations spanned 20 countries, which is close to twice the number associated with papers published in the inaugural volume of the journal in 1989.

Over its history, the core scientific aim of Journal of Cognitive Psychology has remained unchanged, which is to publish cutting-edge research and review papers from all areas of cognitive psychology that advance an understanding of cognitive mechanisms and processes. Papers published in the journal in 2019 aligned very closely with this remit and included research from experimental cognitive psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists working in areas across the full breadth of the discipline, including perception, attention, language processing, numerical cognition, action and motor control, spatial cognition, learning, memory, problem-solving, reasoning, judgement and decision-making. In addition, the journal welcomed papers last year at the intersection of cognitive psychology and related disciplines, with papers being published reporting work at the interface between cognition and cross-cultural psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology and clinical psychology. Once again, too, it was pleasing that papers in last year’s volume offered insights into cognition based on the application of diverse research methods such as pupillometry, eye-movement tracking, electroencephalography and simulation modelling. As I have mentioned in my two previous editorials (Ball, 2018, 2019), Journal of Cognitive Psychology is very keen to receive more manuscripts using methods that complement traditional behavioural analyses, including techniques for exploring the neural basis of cognitive functioning.

Journal of Cognitive Psychology commences 2020 in a very positive position, with a healthy level of new submissions already arriving for review and with two exciting special issues under development that are scheduled for publication in 2021. One special issue is entitled Studying the Cognitive and Affective Aspects of Insight Problem Solving. This is being edited by Amory H. Danek (University of Heidelberg, Germany) and Jasmin M. Kizilirmak (German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Göttingen, Germany), two leading researchers in the field of creativity research who are advancing new ideas regarding the phenomenology, temporal dynamics and neural correlates of insight. Their special issue aims to address unresolved definitional and methodological challenges in the study of insight in problem-solving, with a focus on ways to measure insight either from a cognitive perspective (in terms of underlying processes of restructuring or representational change) or from an affective perspective (in terms of the phenomenological aspects of insight such as the subjective “Aha! experience”).

The second special issue that is under development is entitled Visual Perspective in Memory & Imagination and is being edited by Peggy L. St. Jacques and Esther Fujiwara (both at the University of Alberta, Canada) together with Heather Iriye (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden). These researchers are spearheading new developments in our understanding of the way in which the particular perspective we adopt during remembering and imagining can have consequences for our future behaviour. This special issue aims to bring together current research on the role of visual perspective in memory and imagination as well as studies examining the nature of underpinning neural mechanisms.

The aforementioned special issues are excellent examples of themed collections of papers addressing state-of-the-art topics in contemporary cognitive research, which Journal of Cognitive Psychology is very keen to embrace. Prospective guest editors of special issues are welcome to contact me directly with their proposals, which need to outline a single topic of current importance and should ideally contain around 7–10 empirical papers that afford contrasting theoretical and methodological perspectives. The inclusion of a theory-driven literature review is often a good way to commence a special issue, but this is not essential. I will be happy to take an active role in mentoring guest editors through the editorial process, should they wish to receive such support, with all submitted papers following the journal’s standard manuscript reviewing procedures.

Other important developments for the Journal of Cognitive Psychology relate to the open science agenda. In last year’s editorial (Ball, 2019), I noted that the journal had continued to honour its commitment to open science, having already become a signatory in 2017 to The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines (cos.io/our-services/top-guidelines). A major aspect of the Journal of Cognitive Psychology’s alignment with initiatives relating to transparency and open access has been the increasing effort by the journal’s editorial team to encourage authors to make their data available during the review process as well as after paper acceptance. This open data expectation was given further impetus in 2018 by Journal of Cognitive Psychology embracing both the “Peer Reviewers’ Openness Initiative” (Morey et al., 2016) and the “basic” policy relating to data sharing that was spearheaded by Taylor & Francis for all of its journals.

These latter moves have all resulted in a marked increase in the number of published papers that include a link for readers to access supplementary data from online repositories, which is a very welcome development. Nevertheless, there are some papers that are still being published in the journal that omit links to supplementary data for no apparent reason. To address this issue Journal of Cognitive Psychology is taking a further step this year toward ensuring that almost all papers are open data compliant. To this end, the journal is moving in 2020 from a “basic” level of data sharing to the adoption of Taylor & Francis’ more stringent “open” data policy, the main elements of which are as follows:

• Authors must make their data freely available to the public, under a licence allowing re-use by any third party for any lawful purpose (i.e. CCBY, CCO or equivalent).

• Data should be findable and fully accessible and therefore the inclusion of a “Data Availability Statement” is mandatory.

• Datasets must be assigned a “Persistent Identifier” (PID).

• Data must be cited in both the paper and the reference list.

• Peer review of associated data is optional.

For this open data policy, there is, of course, an understanding by Taylor & Francis that exceptions will need to be granted where the sharing of data conflicts with a need to protect personal identities, where authors do not have ownership of the data in question, where release of the data poses a security risk or where other reasonable exemptions pertain. For a journal such as Journal of Cognitive Psychology, however, it is expected that exceptions from the open data policy will be rare. It is hoped that prospective authors will respond well to the journal’s adoption of this open data policy and will recognise the many benefits that it will bring to the community that will enhance the development of research and theory in our discipline. There is little doubt that sharing data improves the robustness of the research process by supporting validation, reproducibility and replicability of results, which can, in turn, advance discovery and knowledge. Sharing data can additionally lead to data re-use and the uncovering of new findings while also providing improved opportunities for the pursuit of meta-analyses.

It is also important to mention another progressive move by Journal of Cognitive Psychology for 2020, which is that the journal is now open for the submission and processing of registered reports. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of registered reports, then they simply reflect a form of an empirical paper in which the methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and reviewed prior to the planned research being conducted. High-quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication before data collection commences. This format is designed to minimise publication bias and research bias in hypothesis-driven research, while also allowing the flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings.

Just like standard articles, all registered reports will first come to me for onward assignment to an Associate Editor with relevant subject-specific methodological expertise. The Associate Editor will then handle the peer-review and decision-making process for the report. The review process for registered reports is divided into two stages. At Stage 1, reviewers assess study proposals before data are collected. At Stage 2, reviewers consider and evaluate the full study, including results and interpretation. Stage 1 manuscripts will, therefore, include only an introduction, methods (including proposed analyses) and pilot data (where applicable). Following Stage 1 peer review, manuscripts will be accepted or rejected outright, or else authors will be offered the opportunity to revise the manuscript. Manuscripts that pass peer review will be issued an in principle acceptance (IPA), indicating that the paper will be published pending successful completion of the study according to the pre-registered methods and analytic procedures, as well as a defensible and evidence-based interpretation of the results. Following the completion of the study, authors will complete the manuscript, including results and discussion sections such that Stage 2 manuscripts more closely resemble a regular article format. The manuscript will then be returned to the reviewers for evaluation. Editorial decisions at this stage will not be based on the perceived importance, novelty or conclusiveness of the results. If you are interested in submitting a registered report, then please feel free to contact me directly for detailed guidance on the preparation of manuscripts for Stage 1 evaluation and Stage 2 full review. I would very much welcome seeing papers published via this route over the coming few years.

Finally, I am pleased to note that over the past year Journal of Cognitive Psychology has retained a stable editorial team whose members will continue to support the journal during 2020. I would once again like to thank Tilmann, Monica, Jamie, Ruth, Esther, John, Michael and Sue for their dedicated and highly expert work as Associate Editors for Journal of Cognitive Psychology. Likewise, I am very grateful for the continuing contribution that is made to the journal’s high-quality peer-review process by the 42 international members of the Editorial Board. Having such a committed and experienced editorial team enables the journal to meet the challenges of handling a growing number of incoming manuscripts that extend to all areas of the discipline, with a 26% increase in submissions in 2019 compared to 2018.

Once again, I look forward to another exciting year ahead for Journal of Cognitive Psychology. The editorial team remains committed to maintaining the journal’s reputation for publishing high-quality, world-leading research in cognitive psychology and we welcome your submissions, whether these are full articles (i.e. papers that report substantive empirical work or papers that review the literature and advance cognitive psychological theory), brief articles (i.e. papers not exceeding 4000 words that facilitate relatively fast dissemination of novel, theoretically important findings) or registered reports.

ORCID

Linden J. Ball http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5099-0124