Psychological Review®
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Editorial
From APA Journals Article Spotlight®
Psychological Review ® publishes articles that make important theoretical contributions to any area of scientific psychology, including systematic evaluation of alternative theories. Papers mainly focused on surveys of the literature, problems of method and design, or reports of empirical findings are not appropriate.
There is no upper bound on the length of Psychological Review articles. However, authors who submit papers with texts longer than 25,000 words will be asked to justify the need for their length.
Psychological Review also publishes, as Theoretical Notes, commentary that contributes to progress in a given subfield of scientific psychology. Such notes include, but are not limited to, discussions of previously published articles, comments that apply to a class of theoretical models in a given domain, critiques and discussions of alternative theoretical approaches, and meta-theoretical commentary on theory testing and related topics.
Disclaimer: APA and the Editors of Psychological Review assume no responsibility for statements and opinions advanced by the authors of its articles.
Editor
Keith J. Holyoak
University of California, Los Angeles
Associate Editors
Mike Kahana
University of Pennsylvania
Laurence T. Maloney
New York University
Michael Morris
Columbia University
Elizabeth Redcay
University of Maryland
Elke U. Weber
Princeton University
Consulting Editors
John Anderson
Carnegie Mellon University
Terry Kit-fong Au
University of Hong Kong
Renee Baillargeon
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Bernard Balleine
University of California, Los Angeles
Marty Banks
University of California, Berkeley
Deanna M. Barch
Washington University
Aaron S. Benjamin
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Paul Bloom
Yale University
Mark E. Bouton
University of Vermont
Nick Chater
University of Warwick
Chi Yue Chiu
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Amy H. Criss
Syracuse University
Peter Dayan
University College London
Gary S. Dell
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Leonidas A. A. Doumas
University of Edinburgh
Nancy Eisenberg
Arizona State University
Simon Farrell
University of Western Australia
Eli Finkel
Northwestern Medical
Michael J. Frank
Brown University
Karl R. Gegenfurtner
Giessen University
Samuel Gershman
Harvard University
Robert Goldstone
Indiana University
Peter C. Gordon
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Thomas L. Griffiths
University of California, Berkeley
Ulrike Hahn
Birkbeck University of London
Graeme Halford
Griffith University
Reid Hastie
University of Chicago
Andrew Heathcote
University of Tasmania
Steven J. Heine
University of British Columbia
Marc W. Howard
Boston University
John E. Hummel
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Tatsuya Kameda
The University of Tokyo
Charles Kemp
University of Melbourne
Arie Wladimir Kruglanski
University of Maryland
John K. Kruschke
Indiana University
Stephan Lewandowsky
University of Bristol
Matthew Lieberman
University of California, Los Angeles
Gordon D. Logan
Vanderbilt University
Hongjing Lu
University of California, Los Angeles
Zhong-Lin Lu
The Ohio State University
Brenda Major
University of California, Santa Barbara
Pascal Mamassian
Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
Janet Metcalfe
Columbia University
Ralph R. Miller
State University of New York at Binghamton
Scott M. Monroe
University of Notre Dame
Yael Niv
Princeton University
Ara Norenzayan
University of British Columbia
Kenneth A. Norman
Princeton University
Robert Nosofsky
Indiana University
Mike Oaksford
Birkbeck College, University of London
John Opfer
The Ohio State University
Alexander Alexandrov Petrov
Ohio State University
David C. Plaut
Carnegie Mellon University
Timothy J. Pleskac
University of Kansas
Valerie Reyna
Cornell University
David R. Shanks
University College London
Jim Sidanius
Harvard University
Neil Stewart
University of Warwick
Mark Steyvers
University of California, Irvine
James T. Townsend
Indiana University
Marius Usher
Tel-Aviv University
Michael R. Waldmann
University of Göttingen
Sandra R. Waxman
Northwestern University
John T. Wixted
University of California, San Diego
Jeremy M. Wolfe
Brigham & Women's Hospital & Harvard Medical School
Wendy Wood
University of Southern California
Peer Review Coordinator
Lorie Van Olst
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Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.
Submission
To submit to the Editorial Office of Keith J. Holyoak, please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal.
Keith J. Holyoak, Editor
Department of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563
General correspondence may be directed to the Editor's Office.
Do not submit manuscripts to the Editor's email address.
All submissions should be clear and readable. An unusual typeface is acceptable only if it is clear and legible.
In addition to addresses and phone numbers, please supply electronic mail addresses and fax numbers, if available, for potential use by the editorial office and later by the production office.
Psychological Review® is now using a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares the initial version of each submitted manuscript against a database of 40+ million scholarly documents, as well as content appearing on the open web. This allows APA to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material).
Masked Review Policy
Open (i.e., unmasked) review is the default for this journal, though masked review is an option. If you choose masked review, include authors' names and affiliations only in the cover letter for the manuscript.
Authors who choose masked review should make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to their identities.
Length
There is no upper bound on the length of Psychological Review articles. However, authors who submit papers with texts longer than 25,000 words will be asked to justify the need for their length.
Submissions must be under 5 MB in total size.
Manuscript Preparation
Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 3 of the Publication Manual).
Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines before submitting your article.
Double-space all copy. Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual. Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.
Below are additional instructions regarding the preparation of display equations, computer code, and tables.
Display Equations
We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations, rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010. Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are converted to low-resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.
To construct your equations with MathType or Equation Editor 3.0:
- Go to the Text section of the Insert tab and select Object.
- Select MathType or Equation Editor 3.0 in the drop-down menu.
If you have an equation that has already been produced using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 and you have access to the full version of MathType 6.5 or later, you can convert this equation to MathType by clicking on MathType Insert Equation. Copy the equation from Microsoft Word and paste it into the MathType box. Verify that your equation is correct, click File, and then click Update. Your equation has now been inserted into your Word file as a MathType Equation.
Use Equation Editor 3.0 or MathType only for equations or for formulas that cannot be produced as Word text using the Times or Symbol font.
Computer Code
Authors of accepted articles who report new computer simulations of models, or new data-analysis software, are required to provide the code as online supplemental material ("additional content") at the time of final manuscript submission. It is important to include adequate documentation so that the code can be downloaded and used by other researchers.
Because altering computer code in any way (e.g., indents, line spacing, line breaks, page breaks) during the typesetting process could alter its meaning, we treat computer code differently from the rest of your article in our production process. To that end, we request separate files for computer code.
In Online Supplemental Material
We request that runnable source code be included as supplemental material to the article. For more information, visit Supplementing Your Article With Online Material.
In the Text of the Article
If you would like to include code in the text of your published manuscript, please submit a separate file with your code exactly as you want it to appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. We will make an image of each segment of code in your article that exceeds 40 characters in length. (Shorter snippets of code that appear in text will be typeset in Courier New and run in with the rest of the text.) If an appendix contains a mix of code and explanatory text, please submit a file that contains the entire appendix, with the code keyed in 8-point Courier New.
Tables
Use Word's Insert Table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.
Academic Writing and English Language Editing Services
Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors.
Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service.
Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.
Submitting Supplemental Materials
APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the PsycARTICLES® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.
Abstract and Keywords
All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.
References
List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the References section.
Examples of basic reference formats:
- Journal Article:
Hughes, G., Desantis, A., & Waszak, F. (2013). Mechanisms of intentional binding and sensory attenuation: The role of temporal prediction, temporal control, identity prediction, and motor prediction. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 133–151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028566 - Authored Book:
Rogers, T. T., & McClelland, J. L. (2004). Semantic cognition: A parallel distributed processing approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. - Chapter in an Edited Book:
Gill, M. J., & Sypher, B. D. (2009). Workplace incivility and organizational trust. In P. Lutgen-Sandvik & B. D. Sypher (Eds.), Destructive organizational communication: Processes, consequences, and constructive ways of organizing (pp. 53–73). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Figures
Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff or EPS files. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file.
The minimum line weight for line art is 0.5 point for optimal printing.
For more information about acceptable resolutions, fonts, sizing, and other figure issues, please see the general guidelines.
When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.
APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.
The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., "the red (dark gray) bars represent") as needed.
For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:
- $900 for one figure
- An additional $600 for the second figure
- An additional $450 for each subsequent figure
Permissions
Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).
On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image whose copyright status is unknown.
Publication Policies
APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.
See also APA Journals® Internet Posting Guidelines.
APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).
In light of changing patterns of scientific knowledge dissemination, APA requires authors to provide information on prior dissemination of the data and narrative interpretations of the data/research appearing in the manuscript (e.g., if some or all were presented at a conference or meeting, posted on a listserv, shared on a website, including academic social networks like ResearchGate, etc.). This information (2–4 sentences) must be provided as part of the Author Note.
Authors of accepted manuscripts are required to transfer the copyright to APA.
- For manuscripts not funded by the Wellcome Trust or the Research Councils UK
Publication Rights (Copyright Transfer) Form (PDF, 83KB) - For manuscripts funded by the Wellcome Trust or the Research Councils UK
Wellcome Trust or Research Councils UK Publication Rights Form (PDF, 34KB)
Ethical Principles
It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).
In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14).
APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.
Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.
The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist, Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.
Other Information
Visit the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more resources for writing, reviewing, and editing articles for publishing in APA journals.
- Psychological Review, The Centennial Issue
Special issue of the APA journal Psychological Review, Vol. 101, No. 2, April 1994. The issue includes historical articles on the physical basis of emotion; cognitive psychology; behaviorism; neuroscience; measurement; learning; motivation; visual perception; and cognitive processing.
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Authors and Reviewers Resource Center
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