Accumulation bias: how to acknowledge, and how to handle it

<p>Studies accumulate over time and meta-analyses are mainly retrospective. These two characteristics introduce dependencies between the analysis time, at which a series of studies is up for meta-analysis, and results within the series. Dependencies introduce bias —accumulation bias— and invalidate the sampling distribution assumed for p-value tests, thus inflating type-I errors. But dependencies are also inevitable, since for science to accumulate efficiently, new research needs to be informed by past results.</p><p>In this talk we will study why valid inference is still possible, even if accumulation bias is present, influential and uncorrectable.</p>