Garden of forking paths in ERP research – Effects of varying pre-processing and analysis steps in an N400 experiment Psychophysiology str. 1-18 2024 KEYWORDS: event-related potentials, garden of forking paths, methodology, multiverse analysis, statistics eng Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Society for Psychophysiological Research Šoškić, Anđela Styles, Suzy J. Kappenman, Emily S. Ković, Vanja All rights reserved info:eu-repo/semantics/article https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:34248 doi:10.1111/psyp.14628 ISSN: 0048-5772 application/pdf 1461602 bytes Abstract: This study tackles the Garden of Forking Paths, as a challenge for replicability and reproducibility of ERP studies. Here, we applied a multiverse analysis to a sample ERP N400 dataset, donated by an independent research team. We analyzed this dataset using 14 pipelines selected to showcase the full range of methodological variability found in the N400 literature using systematic review approach. The selected pipelines were compared in depth by looking into statistical test out- comes, descriptive statistics, effect size, data quality, and statistical power. In this way we provide a worked example of how analytic flexibility can impact results in research fields with high dimensionality such as ERP, when analyzed using standard null-hypothesis significance testing. Out of the methodological deci- sions that were varied, high-pass filter cut-off, artifact removal method, baseline duration, reference, measurement latency and locations, and amplitude measure (peak vs. mean) were all shown to affect at least some of the study outcome meas- ures. Low-pass filtering was the only step which did not notably influence any of these measures. This study shows that even some of the seemingly minor proce- dural deviations can influence the conclusions of an ERP study. We demonstrate the power of multiverse analysis in both identifying the most reliable effects in a given study, and for providing insights into consequences of methodological decisions. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psyp.14628