Glossary and Acronyms

ANOVA - ANalysis Of VAriance; a special case of the GLM and extension of the t-test commonly taught to undergraduate psychology students; used to test whether group-means differ under conditions of more than two groups.

CV - Curriculum Vitae. Latin for "course of life", your CV is your academic resumé: a concise written summary of your career, primarily including education, publications, grants, etc. For an example, see my CV.

EEG - Electroencephalogram; non-invasive scalp-based neuroimaging tool that excels in the time-domain, but suffers in the spatial-domain.

ESL - A statistics book called The Elements of Statistical Learning (ESL); Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R., & Friedman, J. (2009). The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction, Second Edition (2nd edition). Springer.

fNIRS - Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy; non-invasive forehead-based neuroimaging tool that excels in its ease-of-use, but suffers insofar as it is only viable for the front of the brain.

GLM - General Linear Model; the most commonly used family of statistical models used in psychology. Not to be confused with the "Generalized linear model". See ISL for details.

GPA - Grade Point Average.

GRE - Graduate Record Exam; a standardized test sometimes required as part of a graduate application in Canada and the United States.

HARKing - Hypothesizing After Results are Known. HARKing is a form of research misconduct wherein the researcher pretends that their hypotheses were different than they actually were. This is typically done in connection with showing statistics that inappropriately use confirmatory statistics to analyze exploratory questions. In this way, the researcher presents their data as if they "discover" some finding, failing to account for statistical chance. HARKing can be difficult to detect if you are not part of the review process because it amounts to the authors lying about what they hypothesized. HARKing is one of the major causes of the Replication Crisis.

ISL - A statistics book called An Introduction to Statistical Learning; James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., & Tibshirani, R. (2021). An Introduction to Statistical Learning: With Applications in R (2nd ed. 2021 edition). Springer. and James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R., & Taylor, J. (2023). An Introduction to Statistical Learning: With Applications in Python (2023rd edition). Springer.

MLM - Multilevel Modelling; also known by numerous other names such as hierarchical linear modelling (HLM), mixed-effect models, mixed models, or random-effects models; MLMs are extensions of the GLM that take into account nested data, i.e. data that has intrinsic groups within the data; the common example is classrooms are "nested" within schools, which are "nested" within districts; this type of model is the most commonly used in real psychology research and tends to be taught during graduate programs.

MRI - Magnetic Resonance Imaging; non-invasive machine-based neuroimaging tool that excels in the spatial-domain, but suffers in the time-domain.

PhD - Doctorate of Philosophy; a tertiary degree and the final, highest degree currently offered by human civilization.

PI - Principal Investigator; the head researcher in a laboratory or the leader on a specific research project; typically a professor in charge of a lab.

RA - Research Assistant.

ROI - Return on investment; the benefit, obtained through time, after providing the cost.

TA - Teaching Assistant.

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