Another core value of science is reproducibility [70]. Present incentives for innovation vastly outweigh those for replication, making replications rare in many fields [71, 72]. Journals are altering those incentives with a “registered reports” publishing option in order to avoid bias on the part of authors or reviewers who might otherwise be swayed by statistical significance or the “information gain” [73] arising from a study’s results [74]. Authors propose replicating an existing result and provide justification for importance and description of the protocol and analysis plan. Peer review and conditional acceptance prior to data collection lowers the barrier for authors to pursue replication, and increases confidence in the results of the replication via peer review and pre-specification. Multiple journals in psychology and neuroscience have adopted this format [75–77]; http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/replication), and funders like NIH are considering support for replication research [78].
