Large-scale mega-analysis indicates that serial dependence deteriorates perceptual decision-making
Abstract
For over a century, research has shown that human perceptual decisions are systematically influenced by prior perceptual experiences, a phenomenon known as serial dependence. It has recently been suggested that serial dependence can improve perceptual decision-making by mitigating uncertainty and reducing variability in perceptual estimates—leading to a superiority effect. However, this claim remains largely untested. Here we present a large-scale analysis, compiling the most extensive dataset of serial dependence studies from the past decade. Contrary to the proposed superiority effect, our findings indicate that serial dependence deteriorates rather than improves perceptual decision-making. These results challenge prevailing models and emphasize the need to rethink serial dependence and its role in human perception, cognition and behaviour.
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The datasets containing standardized raw data for the mega-analysis are available at https://github.com/aozkirli/Large-scale-mega-analysis-on-serial-dependence/tree/main. The use of any part of this compiled dataset in future studies requires citation of both this publication and the original source studies from which the data were obtained.
The analysis code can be found at https://github.com/aozkirli/Large-scale-mega-analysis-on-serial-dependence/tree/main.
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We thank all the researchers who have shared their data directly or made it publicly available. Data from three studies were provided by the Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) through the Ambizione Grant ‘Serial Dependence in Perception and Decision Making’ (D.P.; grant numbers PZ00P1_179988 and PZ00P1_179988/2) and finalized with additional support from the SNSF Starting Grant (D.P.; TMSGI1_218247). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
Authors and Affiliations
A.O.: conceptualization, data collection, investigation, analysis, and writing—original draft, review and editing. A.C.: conceptualization, data collection, analysis, and writing—review and editing. D.P.: conceptualization, data collection, investigation, analysis, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition and supervision.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Human Behaviour thanks Matthias Fritsche, Huihui Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.
Results from the PubMed search. The column ‘Selected study’ identifies the study number in the dataset.
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Ozkirli, A., Chetverikov, A. & Pascucci, D. Large-scale mega-analysis indicates that serial dependence deteriorates perceptual decision-making. Nat Hum Behav (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02362-8
This article by @aozkirli.bsky.social @achetverikov.bsky.social and @davidpascucci.bsky.social shows that, rather than improving performance, serial dependence makes perceptual decisions more uncertain.
