A searchable index of real negative results, null findings, and replication failures from the published literature — so you can learn what didn't work before repeating it.
WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record (title, authors, DOI) compiled from open scholarly databases, with the abstract shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed (e.g. Creative Commons); otherwise a short excerpt is shown for reference under fair use. WASTE classifies each work by failure type; classifications are automated and approximate.
20261 results in Negative / Null Result Report · page 588 of 676
Lucchi F, Lloyd B, Nieuwenhuis S · 2023 · Preprint
Background The vagus nerve is thought to be involved in the allostatic regulation of motivation and energy metabolism via gut-brain interactions. A recent study by Neuser and colleagues [1] provided novel evidence for this process in…
Abad-Malo D, Alvarado-Cando O, Karsilar H · 2025 · Journal of eye movement research
Our interaction with the world depends on our ability to process temporal information, which is a key component of human cognition that directly impacts decision-making, planning, and prediction of events. Visual information plays a…
Lorente P, Ruuskanen V, Mathôt S et al. · 2025 · Psychonomic bulletin & review
Recent studies have investigated resting-state, or baseline, pupil size as a general measure of cognitive abilities, based on the earlier finding that larger pupils might be predictive of higher general intelligence or working memory…
Van der Burg E, Jertberg RM, Geurts HM et al. · 2026 · Translational psychiatry
Traditional subjective measures are limited in the insight they provide into underlying behavioral differences associated with autism and, accordingly, their ability to predict diagnosis. Performance-based measures offer an attractive…
Ashburn-Nardo L, Moss-Racusin CA, Smith JL et al. · 2022 · Frontiers in psychology
The reproducibility movement in psychology has resulted in numerous highly publicized instances of replication failures. The goal of the present work was to investigate people's reactions to a psychology replication failure vs. success,…
Mura F, Catrambone V, Valenza G et al. · 2026 · Biological psychiatry global open science
Background Various cognitive and emotional factors shape our perception of time. Notably, individuals experiencing depressive symptoms often report changes in their time perception, characterized by a phenomenon termed depressive time…
Hawkes JA, Flygare AD, Moodie LWK et al. · 2025 · Analytical chemistry
Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is one of the most complex chemical mixtures known, with its chemical composition having long puzzled biogeochemists. Identifying the chemical structures within DOM is essential for unraveling its origins and…
Lien MC, Ruthruff E · 2023 · Journal of cognition
There is emerging evidence that suppressing distractors occur to prevent capture by those distractors. Theeuwes (2022) claimed that the absence of capture is not because of suppression but rather because a difficult, serial search causes…
Mochizuki M · 2022 · Cognitive processing
The QWERTY effect is a phenomenon in which words typed with more characters from the right side (everything to the right of T, G, and B) of a standard keyboard (i.e. QWERTY keyboard) are evaluated as having a higher valence or a more…
Famularo RL, Aboelata A, Schatz T et al. · 2026 · Developmental science
Human newborns are able to discriminate between certain languages but not others. This ability has long been attributed to sensitivity to rhythm-the temporal regularities in speech of different languages. Here, we demonstrate through a…
Warman A, Clark A, Malcolm GL et al. · 2024 · Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)
It's been repeatedly shown that pictures of graspable objects can facilitate visual processing, even in the absence of reach-to-grasp actions, an effect often attributed to the concept of affordances. A classic demonstration of this is the…
Ruuskanen V, Hagen T, Espeseth T et al. · 2023 · Preprint
Over the past few years, several studies have explored the relationship between resting-state baseline pupil size and cognitive abilities, including fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and attentional control. However, the results…
Bissonnette JN, Francis AM, Hull KM et al. · 2022 · Preprint
Dysconnectivity between cortical networks is a core feature of major depressive disorder (MDD). Electroencephalography (EEG) derived microstates are a cost effective and time sensitive method of examining the dynamics of large-scale brain…
Melton ZJ, Chaffin R, Kangas-Dick K et al. · 2023 · Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)
The causal relationship of interpersonal liking affecting interpersonal synchrony is inconsistently documented. This study tests whether (a) interpersonal liking increases both behavioural and perceived synchrony and (b) people will…
Lee MK, El Sergani AM, Herrick N et al. · 2025 · Orthodontics & craniofacial research
Objective Torus Palatinus (TP) is a common trait with an unclear aetiology. Although prior studies suggest a hereditary component, the genetic factors that influence TP risk remain unknown. The purpose of this study is to identify genetic…
Tengku Kamalden TMI, Azali MZ, Chong LC et al. · 2022 · The Medical journal of Malaysia
Introduction Many factors are associated with cochlear implant (CI) outcomes and various methods of assessment for auditory and speech performance outcomes in CI are available globally. The objective of this study is to identify factors…
Burch CL, Romanchuk A, Kelly M et al. · 2022 · Preprint
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a major contributor to bacterial genome evolution, generating phenotypic diversity, driving the expansion of protein families, and facilitating the evolution of new phenotypes, new metabolic pathways, and…
Wengler K, Baker SC, Velikovskaya A et al. · 2024 · JAMA psychiatry
Importance The link between psychosis and dopaminergic dysfunction is established, but no generalizable biomarkers with clear potential for clinical adoption exist. Objective To replicate previous findings relating neuromelanin-sensitive…
Van J, Nielsen SE, Kirwan CB · 2022 · Preprint
Common research practices in neuroimaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging may produce outcomes that are difficult to replicate. Results that cannot be replicated have contributed to a replication crisis in psychology,…
Oberauer K · 2021 · Preprint
Some theorists argue that working memory is limited to a discrete number of items, and additional items are not encoded at all. Others assume that all items are represented with variable quality. Adam, Vogel, and Awh (2017) presented…
MAKINDE AI, Abiodun BJ, James R et al. · 2022 · Preprint
Abstract The West African westerly jet (WAWJ) plays a crucial role in Sahel precipitation, yet there is no information on how well climate models simulate the jet and its contribution to Sahel precipitation. This study examines the…
Kooij KL, Andreani NA, Keller L et al. · 2025 · The International journal of eating disorders
Objective Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a complex psychiatric disorder characterized by persistent dieting and reduced food intake, leading to significantly low body weight. Dysbiosis in the gut microbiome of patients with AN has been suggested…
Kotb A, Wagdy S, Sharaf H et al. · 2025 · Scientific reports
Preeclampsia is a multi-factorial disease, with both genetic and environmental factors contributing to its development. The genetic susceptibility in preeclampsia has been determined to be around 50%. STORKHEAD_BOX1 PROTEIN 1 (STOX1), is…
Long SK, Lee J, Yamani Y et al. · 2022 · Applied ergonomics
Trust is a critical factor that drives successful human-automation interaction in a myriad of modern professional environments. One seminal work on human-automation trust is Muir and Moray (1996) showing that human-machine trust evolves…
Qi J, Yin Z, Peng Y et al. · 2025 · Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice
Background Polymyxin B is increasingly used to treat infections caused by multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria; however, its widespread clinical use is hindered by the high incidence of nephrotoxicity. Antioxidants, such as vitamin…
Rotella A, Sparks AM, Mishra S et al. · 2021 · Preprint
Some evidence suggests that people behave more cooperatively and generously when observed or in the presence of images of eyes (termed the ‘watching eyes’ effect). Eye images are thought to trigger feelings of observation, which in turn…
Alton LA, Kutz T, Bywater CL et al. · 2024 · Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
Metabolic cold adaptation, or Krogh's rule, is the controversial hypothesis that predicts a monotonically negative relationship between metabolic rate and environmental temperature for ectotherms living along thermal clines measured at a…
Asher MW, Hecht CA, Harackiewicz JM et al. · 2025 · Motivation science
According to expectancy-value theories of motivation, individuals choose to pursue tasks that they expect to succeed at and find personally valuable. Historically, researchers have often suggested that these two factors interact to…
Eshraghi N, Jayervand F, Hashemi N et al. · 2025 · BMC pregnancy and childbirth
Background To determine whether the combination of vaginal progesterone and cervical pessary initiated during the second trimester reduces the incidence of preterm birth and enhance neonatal outcomes among women diagnosed with singleton…
Sulfaro AA · 2026 · Psychonomic bulletin & review
Vividness judgements are intended to capture variance in the axis that uniquely separates the experience of a mental image from other unambiguously sensory perceptual experiences, and from a completely non-sensory experience of one's…