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Failure-mode index

Search what already failed

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.

19915 results in Negative / Null Result Report · page 649 of 664

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Nogo stimuli do not receive more attentional suppression or response inhibition than neutral stimuli: evidence from the N2pc, PD and N2 components in a spatial cueing paradigm

Caroline eBarras, Dirk eKerzel · 2016 · Frontiers in Psychology

It has been claimed that stimuli sharing the color of the nogo-target are suppressed because of the strong incentive to not process the nogo-target, but we failed to replicate this finding. Participants searched for a color singleton in the target display and indicated its shape when it was in the go color. If the color singleton in the target display was in the nogo color, they had to withhold the response. The target display was preceded by a cue display that also contained a color singleton (the cue). The cue was either in the color of the go or nogo target, or it was in an unrelated, neutr

View details →DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00630
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEducation (General)

Challenging the notion of a general disfluency effect: the moderating effect of element-interactivity on perceptual disfluency

Maik Beege, Maik Beege, Christoph Mengelkamp et al. · 2026 · Frontiers in Education

IntroductionThe disfluency effect proposes that deliberately introducing challenges or difficulties into the learning process can be advantageous. Particularly, perceptual disfluency (e.g., harder to read fonts) might affect learning positively. However, an ongoing debate persists regardxing the robustness of this effect, as some studies have failed to replicate it or have uncovered opposing outcomes.MethodsTo investigate potential moderators of the disfluency effect, two experiments were conducted using different types of instructional materials (instructional texts: N1 = 76; concept maps: N2

View details →DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1731080
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Ten minutes of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation does not reliably modulate motor cortex excitability.

Sabrina Lorenz, Birte Alex, Thomas Kammer · 2020 · PLoS ONE

Recently, modulatory effects of static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) on excitability of the motor cortex have been reported. In our previous study we failed to replicate these results. It was suggested that the lack of modulatory effects was due to the use of an auditory oddball task in our study. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the role of an oddball task on the effects of tSMS on motor cortex excitability. In a within-subject-design we compared 10 minutes tSMS with and without oddball task. In one of the two sessions subjects had to solve an auditory oddball task during the exposure to the ma

View details →DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233614
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurology. Diseases of the nervous system

Exploring EEG resting state differences in autism: sparse findings from a large cohort

Adam J.O. Dede, Wenyi Xiao, Nemanja Vaci et al. · 2025 · Molecular Autism

Abstract Background Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition, the precise neurobiological underpinnings of which remain elusive. Here, we focus on group differences in resting state EEG (rsEEG). Although many previous reports have pointed to differences between autistic and neurotypical participants in rsEEG, results have failed to replicate, sample sizes have typically been small, and only a small number of variables are reported in each study. Methods Here, we combined five datasets to create a large sample of autistic and neurotypical individuals (n = 776) and extracted 726 variable

View details →DOI: 10.1186/s13229-025-00647-3
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Exploring the role of Honesty-Humility in replicating "The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality"

Singh, Anjali, Durand, Guillaume · 2022 · Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology

This study is a replication of Andreassen and colleagues (2013) [The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(2), 90-99]. We partially replicated the findings of the original study. Our results support the role of personality, particularly conscientiousness, in predicting behavioral addictions, such as video game, Internet, and mobile phone addiction. However, we failed to replicate the same pattern of personality traits for each behavioral addiction.

View details →DOI: 10.20982/tqmp.18.1.r001
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

Good luck, bad luck, and ambiguity aversion

Briony D. Pulford, Poonam Gill · 2014 · Judgment and Decision Making

We report a series of experiments investigating the influence of feeling lucky or unlucky on people's choice of known-risk or ambiguous options using the traditional Ellsberg Urns decision-making task. We induced a state of feeling lucky or unlucky in subjects by using a rigged wheel-of-fortune game, which just missed either the bankrupt or the jackpot outcome. In the first experiment a large reversal of the usual ambiguity aversion effect was shown, indicating that feeling lucky made subjects significantly more ambiguity seeking than usual. However, this effect failed to replicate in five ref

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Ptbp1 is not required for retinal neurogenesis and cell fate specification

Haley Appel, Rogger P Carmen-Orozco, Clayton P Santiago et al. · 2025 · eLife

The RNA-binding protein Ptbp1 has been proposed as a master regulator of neuronal fate, repressing neurogenesis through its effects on alternative splicing and miRNA maturation. While prior studies using RNA interference suggested that Ptbp1 loss promotes neurogenesis, recent genetic studies have failed to replicate glia-to-neuron conversion following Ptbp1 loss of function. To evaluate the role of Ptbp1 in developmental neurogenesis in vivo, we conditionally disrupted Ptbp1 in mouse retinal progenitors. Ptbp1 was robustly expressed in both retinal progenitors and Müller glia but absent from p

View details →DOI: 10.7554/elife.108331
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

The unconscious thought advantage: Further replication failures from a search for confirmatory evidence

Mark Nieuwenstein, Hedderik van Rijn · 2012 · Judgment and Decision Making

According to the deliberation without attention (DWA) hypothesis, people facing a difficult choice will make a better decision after a period of distraction than after an equally long period of conscious deliberation, an effect referred to as the unconscious thought advantage (UTA). The status of the DWA hypothesis is controversial, as many studies have tried but failed to replicate the UTA. Here, we report a series of experiments that sought to identify the conditions under which the UTA can be replicated. Our starting point was a recent meta-analysis that identified the conditions under whic

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Born to fail: flaws in replication design produce intended results

Abraham D. Flaxman, Riley Hazard, Ian Riley et al. · 2020 · BMC Medicine

Abstract We recently published in BMC Medicine an evaluation of the comparative diagnostic performance of InSilicoVA, a software to map the underlying causes of death from verbal autopsy interviews. The developers of this software claim to have failed to replicate our results and appear to have also failed to locate our replication archive for this work. In this Correspondence, we provide feedback on how this might have been done more usefully and offer some suggestions to improve future attempts at reproducible research. We also offer an alternative interpretation of the results presented by

View details →DOI: 10.1186/s12916-020-01517-w
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

Good luck, bad luck, and ambiguity aversion

Briony D. Pulford, Poonam Gill · 2014 · Judgment and Decision Making

We report a series of experiments investigating the influence of feeling lucky or unlucky on people’s choice of known-risk or ambiguous options using the traditional Ellsberg Urns decision-making task. We induced a state of feeling lucky or unlucky in subjects by using a rigged wheel-of-fortune game, which just missed either the bankrupt or the jackpot outcome. In the first experiment a large reversal of the usual ambiguity aversion effect was shown, indicating that feeling lucky made subjects significantly more ambiguity seeking than usual. However, this effect failed to replicate in five ref

View details →DOI: 10.1017/s1930297500005520
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry

Not so different after all? An event-related potential study on item and source memory for object-scene pairs in German and Chinese young adults

Michael Weigl, Qi Shao, Qi Shao et al. · 2023 · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

In recent years, several cross-cultural studies reported that Westerners focus more on central aspects of a scene (e.g., an object) relative to peripheral aspects (e.g., the background), whereas Easterners more evenly allocate attention to central and peripheral aspects. In memory tasks, Easterners exhibit worse recognition for the central object when peripheral aspects are changed, whereas Westerners are less affected by peripheral changes. However, most of these studies rely on hit rates without correcting for response bias, whereas studies accounting for response bias failed to replicate cu

View details →DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1233594
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessLanguage and Literature

Words can interfere with perception at their associated locations: the role of orthography in spatial interference

Elisa Scerrati, Zachary Estes · 2025 · Language and Cognition

The spatial interference effect, whereby words with implicit spatial associations (e.g., ‘bird’) hinder identification of unrelated visual targets (e.g., a square) at the associated locations (i.e., at the top of a display), has been demonstrated many times in English, although it has failed to replicate several times in Italian. The current study tested whether the replication failures in Italian may be due to insufficient semantic processing of the words. Indeed, while languages with highly inconsistent pronunciations, such as English, are more likely to involve semantic processing during wo

View details →DOI: 10.1017/langcog.2025.10031
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPharmacy and materia medica

Formulation, Stability and Bioequivalency Study of Prepared Salbutamol Sulphate Nebules .

Bazigha K. Al –Temimy, Alaa A. Abdul –Rasool · 2017 · Iraqi Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences

ABSTRACT: Salbutamol sulphate nebules is considered as the most rapid effective route of administration for treatment of acute attacks of asthma . This study was carried out to formulate a stable formula of salbutamol nebules containing 0.1% (2.5mg / 2.5ml) of the active ingredient in a buffered solution . Stability study in different buffers at pH 3 showed that the longest shelf life was equal to 3.5 years for formula F .In addition the bioequivalency of this formula incomparison to ventolin nebules was measured and it was equal to (± 5.2) %. Also it was found that there was no significant d

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAstrophysics

A Thorough Search for Short-timescale Periodicity in Four Active Repeating Fast Radio Bursts

Chen Du, Yong-Feng Huang, Zhi-Bin Zhang et al. · 2024 · The Astrophysical Journal

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients with millisecond durations, which typically occur at extragalactic distances. The association of FRB 20200428 with the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154 strongly indicates that they could originate from neutron stars, which naturally leads to the expectation that periodicity connected with the spinning of magnetars should exist in the activities of repeating FRBs. However, previous studies have failed to find any signatures supporting such a conjecture. Here we perform a thorough search for short-timescale periodicity in the four most active

View details →DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad8cd5
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Intervention development and treatment success in UK health technology assessment funded trials of physical rehabilitation: a mixed methods analysis

Katie Finning, David A Richards, Victoria A Goodwin et al. · 2019 · BMJ Open

Objectives Physical rehabilitation is a complex process, and trials of rehabilitation interventions are increasing in number but often report null results. This study aimed to establish treatment success rates in physical rehabilitation trials funded by the National Institute of Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme and examine any relationship between treatment success and the quality of intervention development work undertaken.Design This is a mixed methods study.Setting This study was conducted in the UK.Methods The NIHR HTA portfolio was searched for all complet

View details →DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026289
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Internal Cumulants for Femtoscopy with Fixed Charged Multiplicity

H. C. Eggers, B. Buschbeck · 2013 · Advances in High Energy Physics

A detailed understanding of all effects and influences on higher-order correlations is essential. At low charged multiplicity, the effect of a non-Poissonian multiplicity distribution can significantly distort correlations. Evidently, the reference samples with respect to which correlations are measured should yield a null result in the absence of correlations. We show how the careful specification of desired properties necessarily leads to an average-of-multinomials reference sample. The resulting internal cumulants and their averaging over several multiplicities fulfill all requirements of c

View details →DOI: 10.1155/2013/230515
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Search for ultralight axion dark matter in a side-band analysis of a ${}^{199}$Hg free-spin precession signal

C. Abel, N. J. Ayres, G. Ban, G. Bison, K. Bodek, V. Bondar, E. Chanel, C. B. Crawford, M. Daum, B. Dechenaux, S. Emmenegger, P. Flaux, W. C. Griffith, P. G. Harris, Y. Kermaidic, K. Kirch, S. Komposch, P. A. Koss, J. Krempel, B. Lauss, T. Lefort, Prajwal MohanMurthy, Oscar Naviliat Cuncic, D. Pais, F. M. Piegsa, Guillaume Pignol, M. Rawlik, D. Ries, Stephanie Roccia, D. Rozpedzik, Philipp Schmidt-Wellenburg, N. Severijns, Y. V. Stadnik, J. A. Thorne, A. Weis, E. Wursten, Jacek Zejma, Geza Zsigmond · 2023 · SciPost Physics

Ultra-low-mass axions are a viable dark matter candidate and may form a coherently oscillating classical field. Nuclear spins in experiments on Earth might couple to this oscillating axion dark-matter field, when propagating on Earth's trajectory through our Galaxy. This spin coupling resembles an oscillating pseudo-magnetic field which modulates the spin precession of nuclear spins. Here we report on the null result of a demonstration experiment searching for a frequency modulation of the free spin-precession signal of \magHg in a 1 $\mu$T magnetic field. Our search covers the axion mass rang

View details →DOI: 10.21468/scipostphys.15.2.058
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

No effect of multi-axis dot pattern symmetry on subjective duration.

Alexis David James Makin, Afzal Rahman, Marco Bertamini · 2020 · PLoS ONE

Previous work has shown that symmetrical stimuli are judged as lasting longer than asymmetrical ones, even when actual duration is matched. This effect has been replicated with different methods and stimuli types. We aimed to a) replicate the effect of symmetry on subjective duration, and b) assess whether it was further modulated by the number of symmetrical axes. There was no evidence for either effect. This null result cannot be explained by reduced statistical power or enhanced floor or ceiling effects. There is no obvious stimulus-based explanation either. However, we are mindful of the r

View details →DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238554
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessConsciousness. Cognition

Hand proximity effects are fragile: a useful null result

Ronald Andringa, Walter R. Boot, Nelson A. Roque et al. · 2018 · Cognitive Research

Abstract Placing one’s hands near an object has been reported to enhance visual processing in a number of ways. We explored whether hand proximity confers an advantage when applied to complex visual search. In one experiment, participants indicated the presence or absence of a target item in a baggage x-ray image by pressing response boxes located at the edge of a tablet computer screen, requiring them to grip the display between their hands. Alternatively, they responded using a mouse held within their lap. Contrary to expectations, hand position did not influence search performance. In a sec

View details →DOI: 10.1186/s41235-018-0094-7
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBotany

Heterologous expression of heat stress-responsive AtPLC9 confers heat tolerance in transgenic rice

Yuliang Liu, Xinye Liu, Xue Wang et al. · 2020 · BMC Plant Biology

Abstract Background As global warming becomes increasingly severe, it is urgent that we enhance the heat tolerance of crops. We previously reported that Arabidopsis thaliana PHOSPHOINOSITIDE-SPECIFIC PHOSPHOLIPASE C9 (AtPLC9) promotes heat tolerance. Results In this study, we ectopically expressed AtPLC9 in rice to examine its potential to improve heat tolerance in this important crop. Whereas AtPLC9 did not improve rice tolerance to salt, drought or cold, transgenic rice did exhibit greater heat tolerance than the wild type. High-throughput RNA-seq revealed extensive and dynamic transcriptome

View details →DOI: 10.1186/s12870-020-02709-5
Negative / Null Result ReportMedicine

Complete Lymph Node Dissection vs Observation in Patients With Cutaneous Melanoma and Positive Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy With High-risk Criteria: Multicenter Analysis in Hospitals in the Mediterranean Area.

Samaniego-González E, Podlipnik S, Ribero S et al. · 2026 · Actas dermo-sifiliograficas

Background Management of patients with cutaneous melanoma and positive sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has shifted toward surveillance rather than complete lymph node dissection (CLND), because CLND has failed to demonstrate a survival…

View details →DOI: 10.1016/j.ad.2026.104648
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine (General)

A BIOMECHANICAL STUDY OF LATERAL RELEASE AND ELMSLIE-TRILLAT PROCEDURES TO RESTABILISETHE MALTRACKTNG PATELLA

MM. Tahmasbi, F. Farahmand , AA. Amis · 1999 · Acta Medica Iranica

 The resistant* of pateSa against lateral displacement (Le. the stability), was studied tinder a range of conditions in vitro, at a range of knee flexion angles. Muscle forces were applied in physiological directions along the separate quadriceps muscles. Normal muscle actions with constant tension showed constant patellar stability up to sixty degrees knee flexion, and then a significant increase at ninety degrees. A pathological knee was simulated by relaxing vastus medians, and ■ lateral stability then dropped by 47%. Isolated rttlnaeular release in the pathological knee did not improv

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Caffeine enhances memory performance in young adults during their non-optimal time of day

Stephanie M Sherman, Timothy P Buckley, Elsa Baena et al. · 2016 · Frontiers in Psychology

Many college students struggle to perform well on exams in the early morning. Although students drink caffeinated beverages to feel more awake, it is unclear whether these actually improve performance. After consuming coffee (caffeinated or decaffeinated), college-age adults completed implicit and explicit memory tasks in the early morning and late afternoon (Experiment 1). During the morning, participants ingesting caffeine demonstrated a striking improvement in explicit memory, but not implicit memory. Caffeine did not alter memory performance in the afternoon. In Experiment 2, participants

View details →DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01764
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Partos pélvicos.

J Neves, P J Santos, I Azevedo et al. · 1999 · Acta Médica Portuguesa

Labour is very important in breech presentation and it is associated to significant morbidity and mortality enhancement in recent years. The authors made a retrospective study of breech presentation and labour with this kind of fetal presentation, in Santa Maria Hospital in 1993 and analysed the following data: maternal age, parity, gestational age, the mode of delivery, the fetal weight, the maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. The authors also reviewed the Literature on the incidence, the most frequent complications and the management in labour to compare with the results of the study

View details →DOI: 10.20344/amp.2145
Negative / Null Result ReportMedicine

Age-related changes and lack of effect of midlife resistance wheel exercise on afferent connectivity of lumbar alpha motor neurons in ageing mouse spinal cord.

S Krishnan V, Hodgetts SI, Harvey AR et al. · 2025 · Biogerontology

This two part study on the afferent connectivity of lumbar spinal motor neurons in normal ageing mice investigates; Study 1: time course analysis of age-related changes in the synaptic coverage of lumbar spinal cords of male C57BL/BJ mice…

View details →DOI: 10.1007/s10522-025-10348-2
Negative / Null Result ReportMedicine

Percutaneous gastrostomy, mechanical ventilation and survival in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: an observational study in an incident cohort.

Borghero G, Pierri V, Pili F et al. · 2024 · Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis & frontotemporal degeneration

Objective To analyze disease-modifying effects of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) insertion for supporting nutrition, noninvasive ventilation (NIV), and tracheostomy-assisted ('invasive') ventilation (TIV) in amyotrophic lateral…

View details →DOI: 10.1080/21678421.2024.2351185
Negative / Null Result ReportMedicine

Triiodothyronine supplementation in a sheep model of intensive care.

Maiden MJ, Torpy DJ, Ludbrook GL et al. · 2024 · Experimental and therapeutic medicine

Triiodothyronine (T3) concentrations in plasma decrease during acute illness and it is unclear if this contributes to disease. Clinical and laboratory studies of T3 supplementation in disease have revealed little or no effect. It is…

View details →DOI: 10.3892/etm.2024.12611