52% Yes, a signiicant crisis 3% No, there is no crisis 7% Don't know 38% Yes, a slight crisis 38% Yes, a slight crisis 1,576 RESEARCHERS SURVEYED M ore than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. Those are some of the telling figures that emerged from Nature's survey of 1,576 researchers who took a brief online questionnaire on reproducibility in research. The data reveal sometimes-contradictory attitudes towards reproduc-ibility. Although 52% of those surveyed agree that there is a significant 'crisis' of reproducibility, less than 31% think that failure to reproduce published results means that the result is probably wrong, and most say that they still trust the published literature. Data on how much of the scientific literature is reproducible are rare and generally bleak. The best-known analyses, from psychology 1 and cancer biology 2 , found rates of around 40% and 10%, respectively. Our survey respondents were more optimistic: 73% said that they think that at least half of the papers in their field can be trusted, with physicists and chemists generally showing the most confidence. The results capture a confusing snapshot of attitudes around these issues, says Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. "At the current time there is no consensus on what reproducibility is or should be. " But just recognizing that is a step forward, he says. "The next step may be identifying what is the problem and to get a consensus. "

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Consistent evidence supports a significant association between lower positive affect and higher negative affect and increased pain and disability in adults with chronic pain. However, examining this relation in surgical populations has received little empirical consideration. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether preoperative and postoperative positive and negative affect predict pain, disability, and functional status after spine surgery. A secondary objective was to assess the relation of depression to postoperative outcomes compared with positive and negative affect. Participants were 141 patients treated by spine surgery for lumbar or cervical degeneration. Data collection occurred at baseline and 6 weeks and 3 months postoperatively. Affect was measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Multivariable mixed-model linear regression analyses found that preoperative variables were not predictive of postoperative pain, disability and functional status. However, multivariable postoperative analysis found that 6-week positive affect predicted functional status, and 6-week negative affect predicted pain interference and pain-related disability at 3 months following surgery. Postoperative depression demonstrated statistically significant and stronger associations with pain intensity, pain interference, and pain-related disability at 3-month follow-up, as compared with negative affect. Results suggest that positive affect and depression are important variables to target when seeking to improve postoperative outcomes in a spine surgery population. Recommendations include postoperative screening for positive affect and depression, and treating depression as well as focusing on rehabilitation strategies to bolster positive affect so as to improve functional outcomes after spine surgery.

A randomized controlled trial assessed the efficacy of group psychological first aid (PFA) by comparing the Johns Hopkins RAPID-PFA model with a group conversation condition in 119 participants using the state version of State Trait Anxiety Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedules. Both groups showed similar baseline scores, and after watching a distressing 5-minute video, both groups showed similar significant increases in state anxiety scores and negative affect scores, as well as similar decreases in positive affect scores. However, compared with the group conversation condition, the RAPID-PFA group evidenced significantly lower state anxiety scores at postintervention and at 30-minute delay. RAPID-PFA, compared with the group conversation condition, was also more effective in lowering negative affect scores postintervention, and significantly increasing positive affect scores at 30-minute delay. These results support the two primary goals of PFA, which are mitigating acute distress and instilling hope.

Using traditional implicit and explicit artificial-grammar learning tasks, the author investigated the similarities and differences between the acquisition of declarative knowledge under implicit and explicit learning conditions and the functions of the declarative knowledge during testing. Results suggested that declarative knowledge was not predictive of or required for implicit learning but was related to consistency in implicit learning performance. In contrast, declarative knowledge was predictive of and required for explicit learning and was related to consistency in performance. For explicit learning, the declarative knowledge functioned as a guide for other behavior. In contrast, for implicit learning, the declarative knowledge did not serve as a guide for behavior but was instead a post hoc description of the most commonly seen stimuli.