Peelle Lab year in review: 2016

Summary: A lot happened in the Peelle Lab this year, most of it good. Hoping to stay the course in the coming year.

The end of the year is a convenient reminder to reflect on where we've been, and where we are going, both personally and scientifically. Following up on last year's "year in review", here's where we are at this year.

All told, a lot happened this past year, including:

• Published 9 peer-reviewed papers
• Wrote 12 blog posts
• ...3 of which were also published at The Winnower
• Had 3 new grant submissions scored (one potentially in the fundable range)
• Hired 3 new research assistants
• Ran a bunch of behavioral participants
• Ran ~80 MRI participants
• Ran our first online studies
• Published two papers with stimuli available online (Ward et al. 2016, Lee et al. 2016)
• Our only fMRI paper published this year (Lee et al. 2016) includes unthresholded statistical maps on NeuroVault
• Helped organize 1 conference (as program committee chair)
• Attended 5 conferences
• Gave 3 conference talks (and 1 poster...that, for the first time, included Bayes Factors)
• Gave 3 non-conference talks
• Reviewed ~27 manuscripts
• Started as an action editor for Language, Cognition and Neuroscience and NeuroImage.
• Moved from non-tenure-track to tenure track at the medical school

Thoughts on things we did

Progress is always slow but I'm happy with how the lab is doing. We are certainly doing more open science than a year ago and our new projects continue in this direction. I'll be happy if we stay the course in 2017.

Oh but we need more Bayesian modeling/statistics.

Thoughts on things we did not do

We are nearly done collecting data on an MRI/behavioral study that has taken longer than planned to finish (surprise, surprise). I hope we'll be able to start analyzing these data over the coming year.

I'm also optimistic that we will (finally) have a relatively stable processing pipeline for MRI images up and running, which would be fantastic.

New Year's resolutions

Well gosh, I'm just going to copy last year's, because those are good, and still accurate of our focus:

• Make a conscious effort to focus more on slow science (and be ok with what may be a real or perceived reduction in quantity of research).
• As an author, continue moving towards making all of our materials, data, and analyses publicly available, and to use the best statistical methods to address the question at hand (not merely the most convenient). Hey, I even made a manuscript checklist that we're using to help.
• As a reviewer or editor, be more intentional about encouraging other authors to do the same, and to strive for scientific excellence (rather than adequacy).

and let me add:

• Check my email less often (yes you heard me correctly)

Here's to a scientifically productive and happy 2017!

References

Lee YS, Min NE, Wingfield A, Grossman M, Peelle JE (2016) Acoustic richness modulates the neural networks supporting intelligible speech processing. Hearing Research 333:108–117. doi:10.1016/j.heares.2015.12.008

Ward CM, Rogers CS, Van Engen KJ, Peelle JE (2016) Effects of age, acoustic challenge, and verbal working memory on recall of narrative speech. Experimental Aging Research 42:126–144. doi:10.1080/0361073X.2016.1108785