We tested the hypothesis that 'reversing' trial direction, with the baseline period as the treatment observation phase, would reveal effects of natural variability.
This characteristic was the basis of the single trial direction decoding strategy used in the current study.
The first one is the trial direction, consisting of the leading investigators who also enroll patients in the study.
They found no difference in IF based on trial direction, but they found the IF was significantly lower in trials classified as descriptive.
In successive trials, the direction of the moving pattern (e.g., right or left) was random but of equal frequency for each direction.
However, because of the very small number of trials per direction, it was not possible to look at very small subintervals [ T 1, T 2 ].
However, in four trials, the direction of the main findings had influenced the investigators' decision not to analyse all the data collected.
In head-to-head trials, the direction of bias is uncertain but assumptions in defining I ijk could be that the sponsored treatment is favored (sponsorship bias) [ 45, 46] or that the newest treatment is favored (optimism bias) [ 37, 47, 48].
During these sessions, we also monitored the rats' locomotor activity as reflected by the movements of their electrical swivels (The data were analyzed using an 8×3×2×2 mixed ANOVA/MANOVA with subregion as between-subjects factor and concentration, trial and direction as within-subjects factors).
On each trial, dot direction was selected from a set of two opposite directions.
Within each trial, the direction of movement alternated between leftward and rightward at an average hazard rate of either 0.1 Hz or 2 Hz.
