One-Year Update from the Editor-in-Chief

Bradley R. Postle and Jacqueline M. Fulvio

Volumen 33 Issue 1 of Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
( JoCN ) opened with a “Statement from the Incoming
Editor-in-Chief” (Postle, 2021) that introduced some of
the new policies and practices being ushered in by the
new regime. These involved peer review, editorial rejec-
tion, gender bias in citation practices, and preregistration.
Twelve months later, how are these working out for us?

PEER REVIEW AND EDITORIAL REJECTION

These modifications to our practices have worked well.
In der Tat, 2020 Und 2021 have seen an uptick in the number
of editorial rejections that we have issued, relative to “the
Beforetimes”, perhaps in part because 18 months of global
pandemic-related lockdown led stuck-at-home scientists
to write up and submit articles that, for whatever reason,
hadn’t until then been of high priority? Whatever the rea-
sons, we are grateful to our newly assembled team of Con-
sulting Editors for helping us work through this uptick in
difficult decisions. Wichtig, the fact that on many occa-
sions a Consulting Editor has overruled an initial decision
to editorially reject an article means that the decision-
making process for editorial rejection has become fairer.

GENDER BIAS IN CITATION PRACTICES

Okay, now for the real reason for writing this 1-year
update: One year into the introduction of the Gender
Citation Balance tool, we have preliminary data to
share! Volumen 33 Issue 1 of JoCN also included the assess-
ment, by Fulvio, Akinnola, and Postle (2021), of gender
(im)balances in citation practices in JoCN from 2009 Zu
Juli 2020. Is there any evidence that the introduction of
the Gender Citation Balance Index (GCBI) tool (“GCBI-
alizer”; https://postlab.psych.wisc.edu/gcbialyzer/) Und
the inclusion of a Diversity in Citation Practices statement,
in which authors are encouraged to report their article’s
gender citation balances, may have started to chip away
at the longstanding bias favoring man-authored articles?
To assess this, Wir (more specifically J.M.F.) have carried
out two sets of analyses: Erste, how do the GCBIs for all
articles published in Vol. 33 compare to those from Vols.
21 Zu 32 (as reported in Fulvio et al., 2021)? Zweite, für

University of Wisconsin–Madison

authors publishing in Vol. 33 who chose to estimate and
report their article’s GCBIs, did the “intervention” of
encouraging authors to think about their article’s gender
citation balance, and inviting reviewers to make sugges-
tionen, influence the published article’s GCBIs (relativ zu
the GCBIs of the initial submission)?

Erste, we can undertake the purely descriptive exercise
of documenting what happened during the past year. Eins
hundred thirty-five articles were published in Vol. 33
of JoCN, and as illustrated in Figure 1, the gender break-
down of authorship teams—into M(ein)-first/M-last (MM),
W(Oman)-first/M-last (WM), MW, and WW—was similar to
what it has been for the past 10 Jahre. Figuren 2 Und 3
re-present the GCBIs from Vols. 21–32 (vgl. Figuren 2 Und
3 from Fulvio et al., 2021) and superimpose the GCBIs for
the articles published in Vol. 33. It illustrates that, for all
four categories, GCBIs have moved closer to a value of
0, which indicates a reduction of gender citation imbal-
ances. To be clear, we cannot infer causation from these
outcomes, only observe the data.

Reporting of gender citation balances is voluntary, Und
in Vol. 33, 30 author groups chose to participate. Despite
the small n, we can draw stronger inference about the
influence of the GCBI-alizer by comparing, for these arti-
cles, the GCBI of the initially submitted article against the
GCBI of the final published article. Because a few of these
articles were initially submitted before the GCBI-alizer had
become available, this analysis could only be carried out
An 24 articles. As illustrated in Figure 4, peer review and
revision had almost no effect on the GCBIs of MM and
WM articles, but appreciably reduced (d.h., made less-
negative) the GCBIs for MW and (to a lesser extent) WW
articles.

Daher, we are cautiously optimistic that the introduction
of the Diversity in Citation Practices statement and the
associated GCBI-alizer have been effective at combating,
however modestly, this one systemic inequity in how we
communicate our science.

PREREGISTRATION

This is a publication practice that, despite its merits (als
extolled, z.B., by Postle, 2021), hasn’t yet caught fire at
JoCN: During the past year, there was a total of two articles
submitted for review as Stage 1 Preregistered Research
Articles, and as of the time of this writing, JoCN has one
Stage 1–accepted article.

Zeitschrift für kognitive Neurowissenschaften 34:1, S. 1-3
https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_e_01799

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u

/
J

Ö
C
N
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

3
4
1
1
2
0
0
7
5
7
1

/
J

Ö
C
N
_
e
_
0
1
7
9
9
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
8
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Figur 1. Gender-category
breakdowns of authorship
teams publishing in JoCN for
2009–2020 (for which GCBIs
were reported in Fulvio et al.
[2021], und für 2021
[corresponding to Vol. 33]).

WHAT’S NEW? NONHUMAN
PRIMATE NEUROPHYSIOLOGY

explicit policy that JoCN will consider n-of-1 case studies
for this type of experiment.

Not yet conceived in January 2021, we have more recently
added the policy that the factor of number of animals
included in the experiment does not carry special status
relative to other aspects of the experimental procedure
that are also evaluated when an article is being consid-
ered for publication. Pragmatically, this means that it is an

WRAP UP

As always, we welcome input from the community about
how we might consider improving editorial practices at
JoCN.

Figur 2. GCBIs for all articles
published in JoCN from 2009 Zu
2020 (solid bars, reproduced
from Fulvio et al., 2021) und für
all articles published in Vol. 33
of JoCN (d.h., with a publication
date of 2021; gestrichelt).
GCBIs for Vol. 33 were less
imbalanced for all categories
except MW, for which it was
unchanged from the previous
Jahrzehnt.

Zeitschrift für kognitive Neurowissenschaften

Volumen 34, Nummer 1

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u

/
J

Ö
C
N
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

3
4
1
1
2
0
0
7
5
7
1

/
J

Ö
C
N
_
e
_
0
1
7
9
9
P
D

B
j
G
u
e
S
T

Ö
N
0
8
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Figur 3. Same data from
Figur 2, but broken out by
Autorenteams (d.h., these are
the GCBIs for articles published
by MM author groups, by WW
author groups, by WM author
groups, and by MW author
groups). Graphical conventions
are the same as Figure 2.

Figur 4. GCBIs for the 24
articles published in Vol. 33 von
JoCN for which the authors
chose to estimate and report
these data for their initial
Vorlage (solid bars) und für
the subsequently published
Artikel (gestrichelt). Das
shows that peer review and
revision had almost no effect on
the GCBIs of MM and WM
articles, but that it improved the
GCBIs of MW and, to a lesser
extent, WW articles.

VERWEISE

Fulvio, J. M., Akinnola, ICH., & Postle, B. R. (2021). Gender

Postle, B. R. (2021). Statement from the incoming

(im)balance in citation practices in cognitive neuroscience.
Zeitschrift für kognitive Neurowissenschaften, 33, 3–7. https://doi.org
/10.1162/jocn_a_01643, PubMed: 33078992

editor-in-chief. Zeitschrift für kognitive Neurowissenschaften,
33, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01650, PubMed:
33226298

Postle and Fulvio

D
Ö
w
N
Ö
A
D
e
D

F
R
Ö
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
ich
R
e
C
T
.

ich
T
.

e
D
u

/
J

Ö
C
N
A
R
T
ich
C
e
–
P
D

F
/