Dr. Marcel Schreiner

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  Aczel, B., Szaszi, B., Clelland, H., Kovacs, M., Schulz-Kümpel, H., Holzmeister, F., Nilsonne, G., Hoffmann, S., Kosa, L., Torma, Z., Abdelfatah, Y., Aberson, C., Acar, O. A., Acem, E., Adamkovic, M., Adamovich, T., Adiasto, K., Ahnström, L., Akil, A., … Nosek, B. (2026). Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences. Nature, 652, 135-142. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09844-9
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  The same dataset can be analysed in different justifiable ways to answer the same research question, potentially challenging the robustness of empirical science1–3. In this crowd initiative, we investigated the degree to which research findings in the social and behavioural sciences are contingent on analysts’ choices. We examined a stratified random sample of 100 studies published between 2009 and 2018, in which, for one claim per study, at least five reanalysts independently reanalysed the original data. The statistical appropriateness of the reanalyses was assessed in peer evaluations, and the robustness indicators were inspected along a range of research characteristics and study designs. We found that 34% of the independent reanalyses yielded the same result (within a tolerance region of ±0.05 Cohen’s d) as the original report; with a four times broader tolerance region, this indicator increased to 57%. Of the reanalyses conducted, 74% reached the same conclusion as the original investigation, 24% yielded no effects or inconclusive results and 2% reported the opposite effect. This exploratory study indicates that the common single-path analyses in social and behavioural research should not be simply assumed to be robust to alternative analyses4. Therefore, we recommend the development and use of practices to explore and communicate this neglected source of uncertainty.
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  Schreiner, M. R., & Kunde, W. (2026). Associative memory constraints on the storage and retrieval of action-effect relations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001441
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  How are motor activities linked to their perceptual outcomes? We here test the idea that the storage and retrieval of action-effect relations is subject to constraints of associative memory. Specifically, we argue that mutual interference between such representations should favor the storage and retrieval of unique (one-to-one) action-effect relations as compared to overlapping (one-to-many) action-effect relations (uniqueness effect). Moreover, we assume that increasing the number of repetitions of action-effect episodes facilitates learning and modulates this uniqueness effect. In three experiments, participants first produced certain visual effects through motor activities and were later asked to retrieve the activity that had produced a certain probed visual effect before. For the most part, retrieval performance increased with an increasing number of action-effect repetitions. Retrieval performance was higher for unique as compared to overlapping action-effect relations if the number of repetitions varied between different action-effect episodes (Experiment 3) but not if it was kept constant (Experiment 1). This uniqueness effect in Experiment 3 was not substantially modulated by the number of action-effect repetitions. Overall, results suggest that the storage and retrieval of action-effect relations are subject to certain associative memory constraints. We discuss these findings against the backdrop of associative and episodic retrieval accounts.
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  Schreiner, M. R., Mocke, V., & Kunde, W. (2026). The role of compatibility in long-term action-effect binding and effect memory. Memory & Cognition, 54, 109-129. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-025-01741-w
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  Through interactions with our environment, we cause perceivable effects. In four experiments we investigated long-term bindings between action and effect features in action-effect episodes, and how they are influenced by action-effect compatibility (AEC). In addition, we asked whether AEC facilitates memory for effects. In a prime phase, participants performed actions that resulted in an effect that comprised two features, namely a spatial feature (a linear movement or rotation of a box in a certain direction) and a certain identity of a word presented in that box. The effect movement or rotation was either spatially compatible or incompatible (or neutral, in Experiment 3) to the action. In a subsequent probe phase, we assessed whether participants were inclined to repeat the action when re-presented with the effect word. Memory for effect words was also tested. Results showed a higher propensity to repeat an action in Experiments 1-3, but not when the influence of spatial effect features was reduced (Experiment 4). Participants further tended to retrieve the spatial effect location in the neutral condition to a similar extent as in the compatible and incompatible condition in Experiment 3. These findings suggest long-term feature bindings after one-shot learning of action-effect episodes, although primarily due to bindings between different effect features rather than between action and effect features. AEC facilitated memory for effect words in a free recall test (Experiment 1) given repeated presentation of the effect word, but not in a recognition test (Experiments 2-4). Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.
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  Schreiner, M. R., & Kunde, W. (2026). Integrating action-effect episodes into long-term memory as a function of control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 52(8), 1363-1378. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001544
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  We interact with our environment through our actions, sampling information from environmental effects following them. Here, we asked how control over action and ensuing effects influences long-term memory for the effect content and the actions that produced them. In three experiments, participants carried out spatial actions, which produced the movement of a box wherein an image was presented. The box either moved spatially congruent or incongruent with the participants’ action. Memory for images was later tested in a recognition test, and we additionally probed whether participants retrieved the action used to produce an image when being cued with said image. In a fourth experiment, we kept the spatial effect component constant to directly investigate bindings between action and effect features. We found evidence for a facilitating influence of congruency on declarative memory for effect content and on action retrieval by perceived effect content. Moreover, if effect content was enriched with a spatial feature, such retrieval was only observed if that feature was spatially congruent rather than incongruent to the action that had produced that content. Thus, features of a single action-effect episode can be integrated and represented in long-term memory, and the formation of these representations is facilitated by control. We propose that feature bindings can be conceptualized as source memory, representing how environmental effects were produced.
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  Schreiner, M. R., & Kunde, W. (2026). The representational nature of action-effect relations: A memory process dissociation approach. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 33, 46. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-025-02794-3
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  Learning how actions change the environment is crucial for goal-directed actions and skill acquisition. Here we applied a process dissociation approach to investigate the contribution of explicit and implicit memory to the learning of action-effect relations across four experiments. Participants produced object images by pressing one of two keys, with each action-effect episode experienced three times. Learning was either incidental (Experiments 1-2) or intentional (Experiments 2-4) and occurred under full (Experiments 1-4) or divided (Experiments 3-4) attention. In a test phase, participants were re-presented the effect images and asked to either reproduce or alternate the action that had produced them. Results obtained through cognitive modeling revealed that action-effect relations are primarily represented in explicit memory, with minimal contributions of implicit memory. Intentional learning enhanced memory compared to incidental learning, while divided attention during encoding reduced it, with these factors mainly affecting explicit memory. These findings elucidate the mechanisms underlying skill acquisition and provide insights into the representational nature of action-effect relations.
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  Schreiner, M. R., Schnuerch, M., Fischer, J., & Bröder, A. (2026). Representing objects and features in long-term memory: A case for direct feature-feature binding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001619
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  Objects are typically remembered with their accompanying features, suggesting that objects and features are bound together in memory. Yet, there is an ongoing debate about the configuration of such bindings, particularly whether multiple features of an object are directly linked or are only indirectly linked via the object. Here, we tested the binding configuration of object-feature representations in long-term memory in three experiments, bridging research from the domains of object and source memory. In two experiments, participants were presented with object icons with a specific color and orientation, and later performed a recognition test in which feature combinations were presented with old or new objects. Participants had to indicate both whether the object shown was old or new and which of the four feature combinations they had previously seen. In a third experiment, participants were presented with only single new objects at test and had to indicate whether the feature combination shown was old or new. This procedure allowed us to control for the presence of object information at test, which constituted a major confound in previous research. Using multinomial processing tree modeling to disentangle cognitive processes, we found evidence for a stochastic dependence of the retrieval of object features in the absence of object information. This suggests that different features of an object can be directly linked in long-term memory, challenging theoretical accounts positing that features are only indirectly linked via common links to the object and instead providing proof of concept for (weak) direct feature-feature binding.
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  Schreiner, M. R., Rebholz, T. R., Quevedo Pütter, J., & Landrum, A. R. (2026). Investigating factors influencing audiences’ integration of scientific evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 32(2), 292-305. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000552
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  To enable a broad societal impact of science, people need to update their beliefs based on the best available evidence. Here we investigate the influences of external and internal factors on lay audiences' belief updating based on scientific evidence with a diverse sample of U.S. residents from which data was collected in May 2023. Participants were presented a series of fictitious hypotheses. For each hypothesis, we assessed their initial beliefs and subjective expertise, presented them fictitious study outcomes, and then assessed their beliefs again. Importantly, the outcomes' presentation format and ordering were manipulated. Participants exhibited more belief updating when study outcomes were presented simultaneously (all on one page) instead of sequentially (split up across different pages). While chronologically ordering outcomes given sequential presentation did not affect belief updating, participants weighted more recently presented outcomes more strongly. We further found that belief updating was less pronounced with increasing subjective expertise, and more pronounced with increasing trust in science and scientific literacy. These results provide practical implications for science communication and the consumption of scientific evidence.
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  Mocke, V., Kunde, W., & Schreiner, M. R. (2026). Compatible effects enhance short-term action-effect binding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 52(4), 522-532. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001503
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  Each action results in a variety of effects, and the extent to which an effect is compatible with the action that produced it may influence the strength of the link between the action and the effect in memory. Two experiments addressed this role of action-effect compatibility on the acquisition of action-effect bindings and the retrieval of actions upon reencountering their effects. Participants engaged in a sequential prime-probe task. In prime trials, a freely chosen keypress caused a spatially (in)compatible box movement followed by the presentation of a word. In the subsequent probe trials, another free-choice action was to be executed upon presentation of the same or a different word. Overall, when prime words repeated in the probe, participants were more likely to also repeat the action, indicating action retrieval by effect presentation. Importantly, this influence was larger after compatible than after incompatible prime episodes. Possibly, compatible effects were more strongly bound to their corresponding actions than incompatible effects, leading to higher rates of action retrieval when the same effects were reencountered. However, the influence of action-effect compatibility did not extend to declarative memory for effect identities. These findings suggest that, in short-term contexts, action-effect compatibility plays a crucial role in action-effect binding and retrieval.

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  Schreiner, M. R., Feustel, S., & Kunde, W. (2025). Linking actions and memories: Probing the interplay of action-effect congruency, agency experience, and recognition memory. Memory & Cognition, 53, 1187-1206. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-024-01644-2
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  Adult humans experience agency when their action causes certain events (sense of agency). Moreover, they can later remember what these events were (memory). Here, we investigate how the relationship between actions and events shapes agency experience and memory for the corresponding events. Participants performed actions that produced stimuli that were either congruent or incongruent to the action while memory of these stimuli was probed in a recognition test. Additionally, predictability of the effect was manipulated in Experiment 1 by using either randomly interleaved or blocked ordering of action-congruent and action-incongruent events. In Experiment 2, the size of the action space was manipulated by allowing participants to choose between three or six possible responses. The results indicated a heightened sense of agency following congruent compared to incongruent trials, with this effect being increased given a larger available action space, as well as a greater sense of agency given higher predictability of the effect. Recognition memory was better for stimuli presented in congruent compared to incongruent trials, with no discernible effects of effect predictability or the size of the action space. The results point towards a joint influence of predictive and postdictive processes on agency experience and suggest a link between control and memory. The partial dissociation of influences on agency experience and memory cast doubt on a mediating role of agency experience on the relationship between action-effect congruency and memory. Theoretical accounts for this relationship are discussed.
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  Schreiner, M. R., Quevedo Pütter, J., & Rebholz, T. R. (2025). Time for an update: Belief updating based on ambiguous scientific evidence. Zeitschrift Für Psychologie, 233(1), 17-29. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000571
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  Scientific evidence for many effects tends to be ambiguous. Here we investigated how psychological novices update their preexisting beliefs about psychological effects based on ambiguous scientific evidence. Specifically, we investigated various predictors and systematic patterns of belief updating. Participants were presented a series of fictitious hypotheses, accompanied by a series of fictitious study outcomes. For each hypothesis, we assessed participants’ preexisting beliefs and subjective expertise regarding the topic, as well as their posterior beliefs after presentation of scientific evidence. We found a negative effect of subjective expertise and positive effects of trust in psychological science and number of studies investigating an effect on belief updating. We further found evidence for a belief updating pattern according to which participants weight the outcome of the most recent study stronger than that of previous studies. The results advance our understanding of evidence-based belief updating and provide practical implications for science communication.
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  Schreiner, M. R., Neszmélyi, B., Schwarz, K. A., & Kunde, W. (2025). Goals rather than predictions determine the sense of agency. IScience, 28(6), 112583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112583
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  The sense of agency (SoA) denotes an agent’s impression of controlling environmental outcomes through acting. Most theoretical approaches assume that matching predicted and actual perceptual feedback from actions creates SoA (comparator model). We propose, however, a simpler ideomotor mechanism which proposes SoA to emerge from matching perceptual feedback to action goals. In two experiments, participants aimed at target areas on a screen and received manipulated visual feedback. The two models predict different SoA magnitudes based on the appropriateness of the executed motor activity for achieving the goal and the intendedness of the obtained feedback. In line with the ideomotor model, but contrary to the comparator model, SoA was determined solely by the match of feedback to the goal, regardless of motor activity appropriateness. This suggests that assumptions of the comparator model should be reconsidered, specifically, that predictions do not have to be assumed to explain the emergence of SoA.
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  Schreiner, M. R., & Kunde, W. (2025). A cautionary note against selective applications of the Bayes factor. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 154(1), 294-304. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001666
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  Bayes factor analysis becomes increasingly popular, among other reasons, because it allows to provide evidence for the null hypothesis, which is not easily possible with the traditional frequentist approach. A conceivable strategy that apparently takes favorable aspects of both approaches on board is to use traditional frequentist analyses first and to support theoretically interesting nil effects by Bayesian analyses thereafter. Here, we asked whether such a selective application of Bayesian analyses to only nonsignificant effects of foregoing frequentist analyses creates bias. In two simulation studies, we observed that such selective application of Bayesian analyses, in fact, severely overestimates evidence in favor of the null hypotheses, when a true population effect exists. While this bias can be attenuated by using more informative priors in the Bayesian analyses, we recommend to not apply such selective combination of analytical approaches, but instead to use either frequentist or Bayesian analyses consistently.

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  Schreiner, M. R., Bröder, A., & Meiser, T. (2024). Agency effects on the binding of event elements in episodic memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 77(6), 1201-1220. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218231203951
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  Representing events in episodic memory in a coherent manner requires that their constituent elements are bound together. So far, only few moderators of these binding processes have been identified. Here we investigate whether the presence of an agentic element in an event facilitates binding. The results from six experiments provided no evidence for a facilitating effect of agency on the binding of event elements. In addition, binding effects were only found when event elements were presented simultaneously, but not when they were presented sequentially pairwise, contrary to previous findings. The results suggest that the presence of an agentic element in an event does not, or only to a very limited extent, contribute to the formation of coherent memory representations and that additional processes may be required when binding event elements across temporarily divided encoding episodes. These findings add to a growing body of research regarding moderators and processes relevant for the binding of event elements in episodic memory. Explanations of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

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  Schreiner, M. R., & Hütter, M. (2023). The influence of social status on memory: No evidence for effects of social status on event element binding. Social Cognition, 41(5), 447–466. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2023.41.5.447
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  Remembering events coherently requires the binding of their constituting elements in episodic memory. Considering various demonstrations of social motives influencing cognition and preliminary evidence for a facilitating effect of social status on associative memory, we investigated whether social status influences binding processes in episodic memory. Participants were presented with events consisting of a person, an object, and a location, with the status of the person being manipulated. Two experiments yielded no evidence for a facilitating effect of social status on binding processes in episodic memory. These findings suggest that effects of social status are limited to simpler associative memories, as demonstrated by previous research.
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  Schreiner, M. R., & Meiser, T. (2023). Measuring binding effects in event-based episodic representations. Behavior Research Methods, 55, 981-996. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01769-1
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  Remembering an experienced event in a coherent manner requires the binding of the event’s constituent elements. Such binding effects manifest as a stochastic dependency of the retrieval of event elements. Several approaches for modeling these dependencies have been proposed. We compare the contingency-based approach by Horner & Burgess (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(4), 1370–1383, 2013), related approaches using Yule’s Q (Yule, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 75(6), 579–652, 1912) or an adjusted Yule’s Q (c.f. Horner & Burgess, Current Biology, 24(9), 988–992, 2014), an approach based on item response theory (IRT, Schreiner et al., in press), and a nonparametric variant of the IRT-based approach. We present evidence from a simulation study comparing the five approaches regarding their empirical detection rates and susceptibility to different levels of memory performance, and from an empirical application. We found the IRT-based approach and its nonparametric variant to yield the highest power for detecting dependencies or differences in dependency between conditions. However, the nonparametric variant yielded increasing Type I error rates with increasing dependency in the data when testing for differences in dependency. We found the approaches based on Yule’s Q to yield biased estimates and to be strongly affected by memory performance. The other measures were unbiased given no dependency or differences in dependency but were also affected by memory performance if there was dependency in the data or if there were differences in dependency, but to a smaller extent. The results suggest that the IRT-based approach is best suited for measuring binding effects. Further considerations when deciding for a modeling approach are discussed.
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  Schreiner, M. R., Mercier, B., Frick, S., Wiwad, D., Schmitt, M. C., Kelly, J. M., & Quevedo Pütter, J. (2023). Measurement issues in the many analysts religion project. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 13(3), 339-341. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2022.2070260
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  Schreiner, M. R., Meiser, T., & Bröder, A. (2023). The binding structure of event elements in episodic memory and the role of animacy. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76(4), 705-730. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218221096148
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  Experienced events consist of several elements which need to be bound together in memory to represent the event in a coherent manner. Given such bindings, the retrieval of one event element should be related to the successful retrieval of another element of the same event, thus leading to a stochastic dependency of the retrieval of event elements. The way in which bindings are structured is not yet clearly established and only few moderators of the binding of event elements have been identified. We present results from three experiments aiming to distinguish between an integrated binding structure, in which event elements are bound into a unitary representation, and a hierarchical binding structure, in which event elements are preferentially bound to specific types of elements. Experiments 2 and 3 were additionally designed to identify animacy, an entity’s property of being alive, as a potential moderator of the binding of event elements. We also offer a new approach for modelling dependencies of the retrieval of event elements which mitigates some limitations of previous approaches. Consistent with previous literature, we found dependencies of the retrieval of event elements if all of an event’s constituent associations were shown. We found mixed evidence for integrated or hierarchical binding structures but found dependency of the retrieval of event elements to be sensitive to the presence of animacy in an event. The results suggest that binding structures may vary depending on moderators such as animacy or event structure awareness. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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  Hoogeveen, S., Sarafoglou, A., Aczel, B., Aditya, Y., Alayan, A. J., Allen, P. J., Altay, S., Alzahawi, S., Amir, Y., Anthony, F.-V., Appiah, O. K., Atkinson, Q. D., Baimel, A., Balkaya-Ince, M., Balsamo, M., Banker, S., Bartoš, F., Becerra, M., Beffara, B., … Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2023). A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 13(3), 237-283. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2022.2070255
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  The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β = 0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β = 0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates.

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  Halicki, K. T., Ingendahl, M., Mayer, M., John, M., Schreiner, M. R., & Wänke, M. (2021). From which direction does the empire strike (back)? Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 625554. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.625554
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  In cultures with left-right-script, agentic behavior is mentally represented as following a left-to-right trajectory, an effect referred to as the Spatial Agency Bias (SAB, Suitner and Maass, 2016). In this research, we investigated whether spatial representations of activities are universal across activities by analyzing the opposite concepts of “attack” and “defense”. Both behaviors involve similar actions (e.g., fighting) but may differ in perceived agency. Moreover “defense” is necessarily always a response to an attack and may therefore be represented by a trajectory in the opposite direction. Two studies found the classic SAB for activities representing attacking but a reduction (Study 1) and reversal (Study 2) for activities involving defense. Although the spatial representation of defense on the right was much weaker and less unequivocal than that of attack on the left, the results suggest that the spatial representations of defense and attack are located in different positions. Apparently not all actors and all activities are spatially represented on the left with a left-to-right trajectory but position and direction depend on the perceived agency. Directions for future research and applications of our findings are discussed.