STRANGE Framework Addresses Bias in Animal Behavior Research

The world’s oldest behavioral biology journal, Ethology, announced on January four that will probably be adopting a brand new experimental design and knowledge reporting framework referred to as STRANGE in an effort to deal with biases in animal conduct and cognition analysis. Shifting ahead, authors submitting manuscripts to the journal might want to consider their research animals for doable biases—elements similar to genetics, persona variations, or prior experiences in analysis—and focus on how these sides can affect the research’s findings. 

“All people is aware of that there are particular sampling biases that may have an effect on the reproducibility and the generalizability of analysis findings in animal conduct, however very often these will not be declared,” says Christian Rutz, a behavioral ecologist on the College of St. Andrews in Scotland and an editorial board member of Ethology who helped design the STRANGE framework. “We thought it was time to tug this all collectively and develop a framework that helps our neighborhood.”

Roughly a decade in the past, the sphere of human psychology grappled with the popularity that the majority research favored Western, educated, industrialized, wealthy, and democratic (WEIRD) populations. People residing in these societies make up roughly 80 p.c of analysis contributors, however account for under 12 p.c of the world’s inhabitants, in response to the American Psychological Association. The acknowledgement of a bias towards WEIRD topics spurred a broader effort to diversify research contributors and prompted new discussions round how scientists report, reproduce, and generalize their findings.

STRANGE, together with different present frameworks, is now trying to replicate that success within the fields of animal conduct and animal cognition by asking researchers to contemplate the sources and implications of bias of their research. 

See “UK Group Tackles Reproducibility in Research”

Rutz and his St. Andrews colleague Michael Webster first launched STRANGE in a Nature commentary in June 2020, laying out a number of doable sources of bias that would affect how animals behave throughout experiments, together with their social background (S); trappability and self-selection (T); rearing historical past (R); acclimation and habituation (A); pure modifications in responsiveness (N); genetic make-up (G); and expertise (E). 

Wild-caught animals, for instance, are identified to behave differently than people of the identical species which might be bred and raised in a laboratory behave. And traps used to seize animals within the area might bias a sample by together with solely these people daring sufficient to method. Amongst animals raised in captivity, prior publicity to analysis duties can change how they reply to subsequent experiments.

It’s a extremely fascinating framework to judge the suitability of the animals used.

—Nathalie Percie du Sert, Nationwide Centre for the Substitute, Refinement, and Discount of Animals in Analysis 

In future manuscripts submitted to Ethology, researchers might be requested so as to add a brief part to their strategies or a supplementary desk detailing the qualitative and quantitative “STRANGEness” of their research cohort in addition to a quick part within the dialogue that gives acceptable context for his or her findings vis-à-vis potential biases in experimental design. The conclusions drawn from any single research, in response to STRANGE steering, ought to be carefully tied to the inhabitants of animals included within the analysis and never extrapolated to different populations or taxa. 

Animal conduct, like many scientific fields, suffers from a “reproducibility crisis” that makes it troublesome to evaluate how dependable or common findings are. As well as, animal research typically generalize their findings from only some people. By together with extra element, STRANGE might make it simpler to duplicate experiments, says Webster. “Undeclared STRANGE results might go some strategy to explaining why some experiments replicate and others don’t.”

Along with Ethology, Rutz says, two different journals—a distinct segment animal conduct publication and a bigger, interdisciplinary journal—are at the moment modifying their submission tips to include STRANGE, though each declined to be named forward of their formal bulletins. 

Compatibility with ARRIVE and PREPARE

STRANGE isn’t the primary such framework designed to extend transparency round how experiments are designed and the way their outcomes are shared within the literature. 

Nathalie Percie du Sert, a researcher on the Nationwide Centre for the Substitute, Refinement, and Discount of Animals in Analysis who research experimental design and reporting, first realized the necessity for brand new tips whereas finishing a evaluation of the mannequin system of ferret she used throughout her PhD dissertation. As she analyzed the literature, she tried making use of the identical high quality metrics used to evaluate human scientific trials. Research that weren’t randomized or blinded, for instance, would usually have been excluded from her evaluation. Amongst animal research, nevertheless, “if I’d saved those self same guidelines, I’d have had no research to incorporate in my systematic evaluation,” she says. “It was that unhealthy.”

Working alongside her colleagues, Percie du Sert helped to develop ARRIVE, a set of reporting tips adopted by greater than 1,000 journals and promoted by a number of funding companies because it was launched in 2010. ARRIVE features a guidelines of 10 “important” objects researchers ought to embody to make sure that their research are reported with sufficient element, together with details about the species, pressure, substrain, intercourse, weight, and age of every animal. 

STRANGE, Percie du Sert tells The Scientist, is “absolutely appropriate” with ARRIVE, and goes a step past in addressing extra granular issues which might be distinctive to the sphere of animal conduct. “It’s a extremely fascinating framework to judge the suitability of the animals used, and STRANGE is not only in regards to the reporting, it may be used on the design stage as effectively to evaluate whether or not the animals are literally acceptable for the target of your experiments.” 

See “Fixing the Flaws in Animal Research”

Along with one other set of tips referred to as PREPARE which might be used throughout experimental design, the three span the continuum of scientific analysis—from conceptualization to knowledge reporting. “STRANGE plugs straight into PREPARE, PREPARE calls out to ARRIVE,” Rutz says, including that these frameworks are already altering how scientists interact with bias of their work. Each PREPARE and ARRIVE have been endorsed by the Affiliation for the Research of Animal Behaviour and the Animal Habits Society.

Benjamin Farrar, a PhD scholar in comparative psychology on the College of Cambridge who printed a commentary about STRANGE in Learning and Behavior, says that the addition of yet one more framework dangers turning the apply of contemplating bias right into a “box-checking train” when submitting manuscripts. “It appears to have a number of redundancy with what ARRIVE is attempting to realize, and ARRIVE appears to have it in a way more complete and considerate approach,” Farrar says. “STRANGE is a extremely optimistic step ahead, however in its present kind, it doesn’t fairly obtain the robust answer to sampling biases that it desires to be.”

Farrar factors to modifications made within the wake of WEIRD in how bias is assessed in human analysis. It’s not simply bias inherent within the topics themselves, he says, but in addition bias within the researchers—within the varieties of exams used to review cognition or conduct—and within the services themselves. Human psychologists have began utilizing more-robust statistical instruments similar to fashions that account for even unmeasured sources of variation of their knowledge.

Whereas a handful of papers that voluntarily adopted STRANGE have already been printed in journals similar to Current Biology and Movement Ecology, it’s too early to say how efficient the framework might be at addressing reproducibility in animal analysis. “I do assume that there’s going to be bias at some degree it doesn’t matter what we do,” Webster tells The Scientist. “The perfect factor we are able to do is inform ourselves of what these biases could also be. We thought it was excessive time to essentially spotlight this downside and convey these completely different points collectively and suggest an answer.”

See “Potential Causes of Irreproducibility Revealed”